


Hesitation

by BloomToPerish



Category: Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy X & Final Fantasy X-2, Final Fantasy X-2
Genre: Alcohol, Childhood Friends, Excessive Drinking, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Heartbreak, Miscommunication, Porn, Secret Relationship, Smut, Swearing, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:28:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 43,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22261840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BloomToPerish/pseuds/BloomToPerish
Summary: Rikku feels she and Gippal are the only ones truly enjoying what it means to be young and beautiful. Drunken friendship gets messy and then some. Friends to fuck buddies to idiots to lovers with intervening angst.
Relationships: Baralai/Rikku (Final Fantasy X & X-2), Gippal/Rikku, Lulu/Wakka (Final Fantasy X & X-2), Nooj/Paine (Final Fantasy X-2), Tidus/Yuna (Final Fantasy X & X-2)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 28





	1. Chapter 1

“Hey, Cid’s Girl! Drink?”

The question is yelled from the bar as she flops down into her chair, panting and pleasantly exhausted from dancing.

“Don’t call me that!” she yells back. She tips her empty champagne flute towards Gippal in answer. He nods.

Glad for the excuse to not immediately return to the dancefloor, Rikku studies the room. Yuna and Tidus, tipsy and apologetic, bowed out of the room an hour ago. The faces she recognises in the room have dwindled since then. Leblanc slouches brazenly over Ormi’s shoulder, while Logos faithfully retrieves glasses of water. Nooj and Paine departed shortly after the hosts. As for Baralai; it was well past a Praetor’s bedtime. Vidina’s bedtime has also been and gone and therefore so were his parents. The only people still on the dancefloor were Buddy and Brother. They dance as though the venue is playing deep Al Bhed electronica, much to the chagrin of the poor chap that New Yevon had offered up as a DJ. They bounce relentlessly up and down to a rhythm that is in no way related to the song currently playing.

Rikku kicks her shoes off into Gippal’s path as he returns from the bar.

“Watch it!” he exclaims.

“You watch it!”

He places the bucket and two clean champagne flutes flamboyantly on the table. The opened bottle nestles on a bed of ice.

“Since when do you drink champagne?” she snorts.

“Since you became a big celebrity,” he winks at her. She playfully punches his arm.

Boredom. The side effect of the eternal calm and political stability. Boredom grips Spira. The people are preoccupied with them; Yuna, Paine, Rikku, the boys. Hell, even Leblanc isn’t safe. With the majority of the group somewhat embroiled in the boring politics of Spira- or ensconced on their little love island- Rikku and Leblanc were accidental celebrities. The latest obsession is their clothing, where they eat, where they party. Rikku is unashamedly having more fun than she’s ever had before.

“Don’t sit too close; someone might catch us on sphere. There’ll be rumours for weeks.”

“You love it,” Gippal teases. He stands up then, folding a discarded napkin over his arm, and expertly fills her glass. Rikku giggles, giddily drunk.

“Happy engagement Yunie!” Rikku raises her glass. They toast the happy couple.

“Do you not think,” Gippal hesitates until drunken valour wins. He shrugs, “They’re a little young for this whole,” he gestures, “marriage shit?”

Rikku narrows her eyes and sips. Gippal throws up his hands sheepishly.

“Yunie and Tidus…” she starts, mock outrage melting slightly, “They’re soulmates, you know?”

“Oh, really?” Gippal rolls his eye at her. Rikku scowls.

“Don’t be a dick.”

“Seriously, the whole things screams epic tragic love story.” He probes. Rikku eyes him quizzically.

She tells him the whole story. They fell in love during Yuna’s pilgrimage. A stranger from a dream world; the put-upon green, baby summoner, heir to Braska’s legacy. The tragedy of the end; his and her sacrifice for Sin’s demise. He had just been gone then. Then, somehow, the Fayth. They gave him back. Yuna has been through enough. Through all of that, for the sake of Spira.

Gippal surveys the bottom of his champagne flute. Points a look at her.

“Okay, fine, a little melodramatic!” she quips. She refills their glasses.

They pass the rest of the evening reminiscing about Brother and Buddy. Hilarious memories easier to access in a tipsy fugue, spurred by the idiots’ dance floor antics. One bottle of champagne has become two. Rikku and Gippal join Brother and Buddy on the dancefloor. The jump around as though they are fourteen again. Heels off, spinning around. The hall is empty and the DJ weary.

At midnight, it is clear the night is at an end, at least officially. Buddy supports a hiccupping Brother back to the Celsius. Rikku and Gippal loosely chaperone them; they are maybe marginally less drunk. Gippal moves to leave her there too.

“I live here now, remember?” she reminds him.

“True.”

“After party,” she whispers,” but you’ll have to carry me because it’s too far in these shoes.”

He jokes that she’s heavy as she drapes herself over his back. She presses her knee hard into his side in reply; she breathes the word “meanie” in his ear.

The air conditioning as they step through the threshold is an unpleasant chill coming in from the warm summer Lucan air. Her apartment is nothing short of modern. The living space is large, with velvet emerald green sofas. A tall standalone gold lamp shade brackets the space. It backs on to empty space; an introduction to ceiling-to-floor windows opening the view up over the harbour. She has a breakfast bar and lights that hang from the ceiling.

On the counter, discarded tissue paper bears the stark imprint of red lipstick. A bottle of white wine is half-finished.

Lipstick stains on an empty wine glass.

He spies a distant hallway, unformed shapes of discarded clothes littering the floor.

“I found,” she hiccups, “the funniest sphere. Oh, help yourself to the wine.”

She pads into the darkness of the hall then. He hears her rustling through something, somewhere back there.

He is impressed with the calibre of wine he finds upon opening the refrigerator. The earlier discarded bottle is no longer cold enough to enjoy. He chooses the cheapest looking bottle; they are in no state to appreciate the finer notes of a good taste profile. He snorts at the image of Rikku; swishing wine around her glass; taking a hearty, nasal breath; proclaiming to recognise the finer notes of Gysahl over Pahsana.

She pads back into the room, baggy slouchy green trousers and a white tank top. She thrusts an oversized bathrobe at him. She tuts.

“How long does it take to pour a glass of wine, anyway,” she grouses at him, wrestling the bottle from his hand; shoos him away, “Go get comfy,”

This is how he finds himself in Rikku’s hellishly messy bathroom. Tuxedo discarded, and looking ridiculous in a fluffy pale grey bathrobe - with white fur trim- and only his boxers underneath. He throws the hood up, and pouts at himself in the mirror.

“Do I look sexy or what?” He declares as he strolls back into the room, swinging the tie of the gown around in a mock attempt at seduction.

She rolls her eyes and beckons him over, arm darting briefly out from under the dark purple throw she is now drowning in. She leans forward, gathering the blanket onto her chest, and scoops the two fresh glasses of white wine up as he sinks into the sofa. She thrusts one earnestly at him.

“Look, look!”

The sphere projector, top of its range. Clearly. A celebrity lifestyle is not one to be sniffed at. A clear image is blazoned on to the wall, a paused image. Immediately he laughs. He can see Cid from, at least, twenty years ago. A thick head of blonde hair covering his dome. He catches her eye then and they are creasing into themselves with laughter. Wine sloshes over the edge of his glass. The sphere. It is nothing important. A youthful Cid, fully thatched, but as puce-faced and belligerent as he is to this day. He’s yelling at somebody, somewhere, to do something.

Giggles abating, Rikku suddenly pouts.

“Yunie and the others were so lame! Going to bed that early!”

“They could still be up, for all we know,”

“Ew, pervert,” she retorts, “but honestly, we need to teach them how to party.”

“We say, in our pyjamas, on your sofa, in the middle of the night,”

“Hey!” she says petulantly. She childishly gulps from her glass. He’s laughing again then. She’s blushing.

“Do you remember,” and he can’t quite yet continue for laughing, “When Brother…”

She scowls as he wipes a tear from his eye.

“When Brother. When he accidentally electrocuted you, that time at the beach,”

“That scarred me for life, you know!

“Yeah, yeah, I know but,” she lightly smacks him on his arm, “Your hair was all over the place. You were fuming, but it was just hilarious because you were so mad at him.”

“Why is that funny?” she demands, corner of her mouth quirking upwards despite herself as he struggles to compose himself.

“Because you looked insane. A four foot nothing, mad, blonde, screeching cloud!” and he clearly can’t continue.

“I hate you,” she huffs.

She counters then. It’s a game now. You laugh, you drink. She regales him with the time he fixed an ancient scrapyard hovercraft to impress one of the girls. The first sand dune it hit, he spiralled out of control.

“You swallowed so much sand on the way down and then vomited it all back up right in front of her!”

And this continues for an hour or so until the topics are probing closer and closer to him leaving for the Crimson Squad. Losing Gippal to the military was the end of all of their childhoods.

At two in the morning, sleepiness is intervening. Rikku switches the console to music. Shows him some of the new sounds she’s discovered in her recent months of partying. Gippal is settling deeper into the chasm of the sofa. She darts up, turns off the harsh lights, and flicks her stylish lamp on. She is drifting in and out of sleep then, hand loosely caressing the remote control.

At maybe four in the morning, she awakens mildly startled. Gippal’s head rests heavily on her lap. The music is disorientating. She flicks it off. She’s tired enough that the soft lamplight isn’t bothersome.

They drift, then, into that intoxicatingly unrefreshing drunken slumber.

* * *

The sickening artificial light of the lamp is stifled brilliantly by the morning sunlight that streams unfettered through her giant windows. She’s awake. Her mouth is dry. She’s drooled onto the plush cushion she’s slumped onto during the night. Her eyes protest heavily as they open. Her head spins. In the night, she has fallen to her left, head propped on a hefty cushion. She is half-foetal here, and Gippal has remained on his back. He is still out, blissfully asleep, deep purple throw tangled between them inextricably. His head is bracketed between her stomach and thighs. She fumbles for the hand on his stomach. Squeezes.

“Hey, wake up.” He groans then, rubbing his face. He stretches. It’s feline and vulnerable. The gown is rising up. He seems more naked now, sober, in sunlight. Rikku pushes herself up from the cushions, wary.

“Water?” She offers, pathetically.

He isn’t even awake, really. She still, loosely, has his hand. She sees peace and hungover discomfort battle over his features for a minute. He is waking up- gazing up- at her, bleary-eyed. In that split second, before his mind catches up, the moment of eye contact blinds her. Affection swells deep within her abdomen. A small, fragile smile dawns on Gippal’s face. He squeezes her hand back.

“Water.”

Disentanglement. Rikku struggles initially to extricate herself from the blanket. He hears the rush of the tap then the heavy clunk of a large glass of water on the coffee table. He forces himself upright and gulps water down. He turns to see Rikku downing her own glass.

“It’s 11am.” She offers

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” He darts awake then. Trousers and shirt back on in haste. Jacket and tie slung over his shoulder. He is stumbling back into his shoes, badly.

“Press conference,” he mumbles.

Rikku has settled onto a barstool, cradling a second glass of water in her hands.

He hesitates at the door then, unsure.

“Oh, sorry,” she realises. She shuffles over and unlocks it swiftly, swiping the keys from the kitchen counter.

“That’s not…” he mutters.

She is ambling back to the bar stool, stretching in the sunlight. He steps towards her, catches her arm, pulls her back round to him.

“See you around.”

He kisses her lightly, briefly, hesitantly on her right temple. Then leaves.


	2. Chapter 2

A fortnight passes before she sees him again. Its 7am on the photoshoot. Rikku’s hair is unadorned and relaxed, long blonde tresses cascade in messy waves to the middle of her back. She is wearing a thin soft dressing gown. She is waiting for the make-up artist to arrive and wanders out of the trailer to pass the time. As usual, there is a table of sweet pastry and cake. A bowl of fruit languishes untouched next to sweeter treats. She presses her hand around a lukewarm coffee cup she pours herself. It is cold in the wider space of the hall where they are shooting.

Leblanc stands, one hand on her hip, the other on her chin. Gippal stands there too. They are watching on as the crew assemble the lighting rig.

Almost two years had passed since Rikku had reluctantly found herself at lunch with Leblanc. It was towards the end of the Blitz season, the end of summer. Leblanc had been a prominent Lucan fashion designer before the Eternal Calm. It was the type of profession that had only really existed in Luca before then, as largely untouched by Sin as it had managed to remain. Leblanc had been swept up in the tide of change with the end of Sin, as seemingly all Spirans were. There was love, too. Both had motivated her to pursue sphere hunting. Rikku suspects that this change back to her original profession might, in part, be a reaction to her spurned advances on Nooj.

Leblanc had asked Rikku to model for her comeback range. It simply doesn’t do, Leblanc had stressed, for a designer to model her own designs. She had been somewhat flattered until Leblanc laid it out for her. Rikku has the body for this. She’s famous enough that Leblanc needs her. It was with trepidation that she had attended the first photo shoot. Yet half a year later she can’t deny it was enjoyable.

The Machine Faction had dropped their experimentation on weaponry and had started to pick up large contracts in Luca and Bevelle. For 1000 years machina technology had stagnated, thanks to Yevon. Where Bevelle was still too cautious to welcome an Al Bhed-led revival of their existing machina infrastructure, Luca had embraced it wholeheartedly. With the majority of the Faction’s work now taking place in Luca, a second headquarters had emerged.

Recently, most of Gippal’s attention had been focused on the renovation of the Blitz stadium. He had also collaborated with Shinra to improve Spira’s cameras over the previous three years since the defeat of Vegnagun. The fathers of Spira’s modern media, the pair are partly to blame with the public’s preoccupation with the lives of the High Summoner’s former entourage.

“Hey,” Rikku chirpily breaks the deep thought and concentrated silence stretching between Gippal and Leblanc.

“Rikku.” he is visibly startled by her sudden appearance. She’s pretty sure that the last time she heard him say her name, she was fourteen years old. He says her name as statement; clarification she is actually there.

“Morning.” She yawns.

He nonchalantly switches back to enthusing about the new cameras.

“You see here. The interference on this picture is now gone.” He says. Rikku really doesn’t pay much attention after that. Leblanc beckons the photographer over when he walks through the door; then she kisses Gippal brusquely on the cheek, leaving him mildly flustered.

“Thanks for lending them, love!” she exclaims before tearing past him towards Rikku and hauling her along to the clothing rack.

The next few hours is a blur of undergarments too tight for her to breathe in; fine make up brushes puffing powders on to her face; and the recurrent dizzying flashbulb of the new camera. It’s a whirlwind of mild pain and glamour and she begrudgingly loves every second of it. She is vaguely aware of Gippal observing the photo shoot. Hand on his hip, finger quizzically on his chin, his eyes fixate on the camera display. They are both avoiding eye contact. There is a crawl of embarrassment across her skin as one of her oldest friends looks on at her.

At the end of the shoot, she visibly sags out of her tight dress as an assistant unzips its. He catches the relieved smile that breaks like dawn onto her face. She flashes her gaze up to find Gippal smirking at her. She pouts, fake petulance, and rolls her eyes.

* * *

Later at lunch, Rikku’s face is still artistically adorned with make-up- picturesque- yet spoiled by the grin she is sporting. Her hair has been swept carelessly, voluptuous curls, into a messy bun atop her head.

“You’re good at it,” he offers.

“I just channel Yunie at her most – summoner -you know?”

“You mean she was more serious than Gullwing-Yuna?” he asks. They are tittering, catching up, over wine and fresh, fancy Lucan salad. The food is understated and bland in the minimalist bar of the hotel hosting the shoot.

“So, when is opening night? I can’t wait to see the new Blitz stadium!”

“Next weekend.”

Gippal launches into an ordeal then; mainly revolving around reigning Shinra’s distractibility in and somehow translating his genius into tangible progress.

“You know, as soon as he is on to something big, he’ll stop and claim that he’s just a kid.”

They are laughing then, trading similar stories of frustration.

“Honestly, though, this kid is gonna bring Spira into the future.”

Lunch passes quickly. Amidst the haze of Luca’s afternoon sun and reminiscent conversation, they easily sink a bottle of white wine. Pleasantly, Rikku buzzes as she stands and stretches. They are both making their moves to leave.

“Anyway,” she says, “Come dancing with me later!”

He makes a show of being too busy. He can’t be out late; he has to be up early tomorrow.

“My entire life is early mornings and late night appearances!” she says pointedly, “Don’t make me spend the night alone with Leblanc!”

“… Fine.”

She beams then, warmly squeezing his bicep. He’s informed that he should meet her at her apartment at 9pm.

Their separate afternoons pass quickly. That tight, quiet buzz of mild mid-afternoon intoxication translates- for Rikku- into a luxurious, too-bubbly bath and –for Gippal- into an unexpected nap.

* * *

“Sorry…” Rikku totters out of her apartment at 9.15pm, hairpins between her lips like arrows in a quiver. She is frantically darting them into the mass of curls she is haphazardly collecting atop her head with one hand. Tendrils of hair tumble down the nape of her neck. It’s chaotically elegant.

“What?” she pouts.

“You’re late.”

His eyes are magnetised to her dress. It is short and ochre, with a deep plunge from her clavicles to below her navel- the descent down the valley between her breasts is framed with sleek sequins that glimmer in the dim light of her entryway. She turns to lock the door. The long tail of the bow of the halter neck bisects her spine.

She’s placing her hand on his chest then. And almost instinctively he is reaching for it.

“Keep these safe for me”

She slips the leftover hairpins into the breast pocket of his shirt, pats once and smooths her hand over his chest.

She loops her arm around his. Full steam ahead.

They catch a minihover from the corner of her street to the venue of Leblanc’s party. She explains during the brief ride that taxies them, that Leblanc tends to throw a lavish and exclusive party when each shoot concludes. It is usually attended by magazine editors; Luca’s news anchors and executives; anyone of mild note, like ex Youth League members. It’s implied by how put-upon she acts by the whole affair that a High Summoner’s ex-guardian adds an unspoken sheen to the event.

“Sounds exclusive, princess.” He says.

A beat, and she lets the childhood nickname slide, internal roll of her eyes.

“You’re with me, so don’t worry!”

Her eyes rove over him then, appreciative of his crisp white shirt. She reaches out and tugs the lapels of his casual navy blazer briefly taut around his shoulders.

“Just smile,” she says with a wink, as the minihover comes to a halt.

There is small huddle of photographers crowding near the entrance, respectfully far enough away not to block their path. There is a sudden clamor when Rikku is spotted. Startled gazelle in a thousand headlights, Rikku collects herself into catwalk poise, with a soft and sassy smile that softens the poker straight composure of her spine. She walks through the threshold of the bar. Easy, breezy, a cover girl. Her usual innocent energy refracts through the prism of celebrity; she is composed, stunning, graceful.

Gippal is momentarily unbalanced. He follows after her, resisting an urge to brush imaginary creases from the front of his shirt. Halfway to the door, he remembers to smile.

Rikku does that thing again, once assured the camera is nowhere to be seen; she visibly relaxes. A sliver of blonde hair drops languidly down the back of her neck. A stiff host greets them. His eyebrow twitches after Rikku downs the first glass of fizz she picks up.

“Ugh, I get so nervous, you know?” she shrugs, impishly smiling.

“You were lapping it up,” he teases.

She hands him a glass assertively; a single raspberry bobs in the fizz as it threatens to spill over the edge. She’s looking at him expectantly.

“You’re gonna be the death of me.” He mutters, as he knocks it back.

They descend down the steps from the bar entrance, a second, fresh glass of sparkling wine each.

The music is a suffocated, slow strain of electronic beats. The genre of music is so unrecognisable to Gippal that he decides it must be cool. The main din of noise in the room is a muffled cacophony of conversation. He spots Leblanc wildly gesturing and entertaining a group of men who are far better dressed than he could ever hope to be. Logos is in another corner. Without even hearing what he is saying, Gippal can read the pretentious drawl from his body language. Ormi is haunting the buffet table. And here and there are people he vaguely recognises. Maroda, of the Youth League; Rikku firmly turns them in the opposite direction.

“Okay,” Rikku softly grips the crook of his elbow. She levels her champagne flute into his line of vision, and points with her index finger, “You see her. Over there? That’s Shelinda, you know, from the news? Don’t spread this about but she’s dating her producer. That’s him with her. He’s obsessed with her.”

The eyebrow above his good eye quirks then. Idle gossip, really.

“And?”

“The stadium reopening. You need to get people interested.”

A gradual realisation hit him them.

“Did you bring me here to network?”

“Gotta do something until the real party starts,” she winks, “I’ll introduce you!”

“Gippal! Of the Machine Faction! Oh my,” Shelinda gushes as they approach, “Rikku!”

They are hugging then in a slightly alarming display of female affection that is driven by a mutual level of mild inebriation.

“It’s only a week now until the new stadium opens.”

Shelinda’s most loveable trait is her ability to find the joy in all things objectively dry. Gippal can’t help but smile. The way Shelinda gestures; he half expects her to pluck a microphone from beneath her skirt. Whether or not this is a natural forte for acting or genuine interest on her part, Gippal finds himself talking at length with solely Shelinda’s encouragement about lighting such a large space; the innovative way they’ve increased stadium capacity; a vague, poorly articulated endorsement of Shinra.

“Oh, we have to cover the opening. Can you score us an exclusive interview?” She implores him. Shelinda's partner- Vinnie - is shaking his hand then. A business card is slotted alongside Rikku’s hairpins in to his breast pocket.

He inverts the champagne flute and drains the last sip. He is mildly jolted into sobriety as he notices that Rikku isn’t already slipping another glass into his hand.

“She went outside for a cigarette.” Shelinda offers, perceptive eyes twinkling over her hands held to her mouth.

In debt by at least two glasses, Gippal purchases a bottle of fizz from the bar. Sceptically, he wanders outside to the smoking area. Rikku _smoking_ is the most ludicrous thing he can think of. In fact, he has borderline traumatic memories of Rikku trying to lecture Cid, of all people, to stop smoking cigars when she was merely eleven years old.

“What-” he asks, deeply amused, “the fuck are you doing?”

She is perched on a low stone wall, knees knocked together. She is hunched onto her elbows, failing miserably to light a single cigarette.

“Nothing!” she scowls at his intrusion. Rikku shiftily grips the cigarette and the lighter and clumsily shoves them behind her back.

“Oh dear,” he murmurs as he sidles up to her on the wall, “Give it here.”

He’s lighting a cigarette for her then. He takes an exaggeratedly deep drag once it’s lit. Disposing of that first crust of ash, he moans because it simply has been _that long_ since his last one. Rikku orbits round to him then. She reaches with a shudder for the cigarette. Gippal smirks. He suddenly jolts upwards, comically whisking the cigarette away from her expectant hand. He shrugs his jacket off. There is an interesting fight between gratitude and exasperation on Rikku’s face as Gippal sinks the jacket down over her shoulders.

“Can I…”

“Well, princess,” he starts innocently, “What would you do if you were me?”

Rikku’s eyebrow twitches in annoyance. Another deep hit for Gippal from the cigarette- he smirks as apopleptic rage builds in the creases of her eyes.

“You’re infuriating.”

“Did you learn that word from _Yunie_?”

She darts to grab the cigarette then, but he is too quick for her, shooting up rapidly and holding it childishly out of her reach. She smacks him softly on his arm.

“I hate you.”

He chuckles, taking a deep inhale. She is tipsily defiant, or defiantly tipsy, neither of them can quite tell. Five inches taller than normal due to her heels; her hilarious scowl is at his eye level. He takes the last drag, leaning in. Close. He exhales the second hand smoke- softly, slowly- at her vexed face.

“I hate you, too,” he breathes, his smirk oozes into a smile.

There is decided aggression in the way her hands swiftly grip the lapels of his jacket for the second time that evening.

“Loves!” Leblanc bursts through the back door, overflowing into the smoking garden with a posse of young men and women that scatter through the threshold in her wake. Rikku releases him as though he’s aflame. Gippal drags his eyes away from hers and throws the cigarette to the floor.

Leblanc wheels around behind them, linking one of their arms each. She marches them into the small sycophantic circle of criminally young, effortlessly fashionable aides that have dogged her every step all night.

Leblanc’s dress is svelte. Long sleeved, bardot. Thick. Black. Velvet. There is ample cleavage, her trademark. It hugs her curvaceous figure like a glove to just below her knees. In a departure from her past colourful embroidery, Leblanc has exclusively worn black; a histrionic statement of rejection; fiercely single and proud. She has a following. Calli is there; black palazzo trousers and lacy bralette dusted onto her tanned slim physique; an oversized black blazer is thrown casually over her shoulders.

She sidles up to Rikku on the low wall. Rikku fills the two empty glasses with the fizz Gippal brought out earlier. She hands one to Calli, keeps the other for herself. She thrusts the bottle in Gippal’s direction and sticks her tongue out. Brazenly, he gulps straight from the bottle.

“Rikku, are you okay?” Calli huddles closer, sympathy softens the arch of her boldly pencilled eyebrows.

“Sure? Why wouldn’t I be?” Rikku says, perplexed.

“You know, Maroda is in there, being a total fuck- uh,” she clocks Gippal listening coolly, “- a total player!”

“Oh,” Rikku shivers, “Don’t worry. We were never serious.”

“Still, no one wants to find a random ex at a work party!”

“Honestly, the press made it out to be so much more than it was!” Rikku assures her, a little too brightly. She shifts her weight as she perches on the low wall. Gippal grins despite himself.

“Um,” Gippal demands, mock scandal, as he raises the bottle to his lips again, “Who even is this guy?”

“A total loser!” Calli quips.

Gippal isn’t even entirely sure why he does it, but he drapes his arm around Rikku’s shoulders.

Calli smiles, a sated kitten.

Rikku is incensed. She abruptly changes the subject.

“You know, Yuna would kill me if she knew you came out to a party like this, Calli.” Rikku chides.

“Don’t tell on me!” she says, “I only come when Leblanc’s out, purely networking, I promise!”

Rikku gropes for the bottle, snatches it from Gippal’s grip, and tops up their glasses.

“I was told there would be dancing,” Gippal offers, at the lull in conversation.

Calli laughs, “It’s so early!”

They chat then, the three of them. There is excitement and anticipation about the new Blitz stadium. Calli is ecstatic. It will, after all, be Lady Yuna’s first public appearance in a year. Her new fiancé- “the star player of the Besaid Aurochs, you know!”- is playing the inaugural match. Gippal was drawn in then, predictably Blitz-mad.

“You reckon they’ll smash them again? The Goers are technically better.” Gippal enthuses.

“True, but how great would it be if they won again; just like they did the year of the Calm!”

“Calli!”

Summoned by one of her friends, Calli leaves them. She presses her unfinished glass- her brows again soft, apologetic- into Gippal’s hand, as she stands up to leave.

“Hey, Cid’s girl…”

“If you ask about dancing one more time,” she grumbles.

“No, not that.”

Rikku fishes the bottle out of his hand. His arm cradles her shoulder still. She sloppily divides the remainder of the bottle between them.

“Rikku,” He whispers, mischievously tender.

“What?” she shivers; her actual name again. He has a familiar expression on his face, poised and waiting for some reaction. Nostalgia washes over her.

“Did you bring me here to make your ex jealous?”

She glowers at him and pushes him lightly.

In their native tongue, “Ugh, you’re so full of yourself!”

The nostalgia. He’s been an eternal flirt and aggravation since before she could remember.

“Meanie.” He feigns hurt with a silly wounded look. Rikku giggles before she can stop herself. Delicately, she cups the bottom of his champagne flute and guides it to his lips.

“Drink up!”

The promise of dancing is fulfilled when they wander back inside. Gippal is relieved to find that the music has picked up its pace- some of it is even vaguely recognisable. The next couple of hours pass in blur of more alcohol, colourful lights and sweat. They amble back to the bar, Rikku stumbles off the stool she attempts to perch on. She steadies herself by gripping his arm, signalling the end of the night. They guide one another to a minihover. Gippal travels back to crash on the couch in his office after ensuring Rikku totters safely through her own front door.

* * *

The sun is radioactive the following day. Wearing dark shades, hair dishevelled, Rikku ambles to the local bakery. A tan dusts her clavicles. Freckles are out to play on her naked face. She wears a delicate white cropped camisole with a lacy trim that brackets her abdomen. Loose khaki jumpsuit pant legs are tucked into brown leather Al Bhed ankle boots. Where usually the jumpsuit zips up to her jugular, the top half is instead tied casually around her waist. She purchases two sets of iced coffee and flaky pastry and wanders towards the Machine Faction office. It’s a tall, thin building attached to the renovation works. Industrial and confusing in its grey temporary façade- wooden boards and metal pipes- the ghostly infrastructure of a building yet to be realised looms over her. She feels exposed from her lack of headgear, as workers bustle around her in vibrant yellow helmets.

“State your business.”

Rikku’s vaguely affronted by the surly doorman. It’s 1pm. She lifts her shades.

“I’m here to see Gippal.”

Hostility shifts to hospitality as he clocks Rikku’s face.

“Ah... Miss- uh- Lady- I mean- um, Ms. Rikku? ” he shuffles, “Of course, go right ahead.”

She squirms at the accidental flex of her celebrity.

“Thank you.” She says breezily, palming off a lazy salute.

The lobby is plain, impermanent. There is a young brunette girl lazily flicking through a magazine at the reception desk. The door sucks softly closed behind her, and Rikku approaches. She is clearly quieter than she intends. Unaware of Rikku’s presence, the receptionist stretches backwards on her chair, holding the magazine up to the sunlight spilling in through the lobby’s skylight. Rikku coughs lightly to alert the engrossed girl to her presence.

"Um, hi…”

The receptionist drops the magazine with a gasp- it flutters to the ground as dramatically as she exclaims, “Lady Rikku,-”

“- Rikku is fine -” she interjects rapidly.

“- how may I help you?” the widely blue-eyed girl blusters, in polished Al Bhed.

Rikku arches a brow in startled pleasure at that.

“I just,” she starts. She is vaguely itchy that maybe he’s busier than she realises, “I’m here to see Gippal.”

“Of course,” the girl stutters. She starts frantically flicking through a large tome like diary on the desk, “Um, well, he’s um, he’s actually just finished a Commspherence Call with the League and New Yevon.”

“Perfect. Where’s his office?”

“Um-“ the young lady falters, persevering in textbook-fresh Al Bhed. _Sarra_ her name badge reads. Loyalty trickles like treacle into her starstruck gaze. “He’s not available for drop-ins. He’s meeting a client in fiftee—“

“Your Al Bhed is impeccable,” Rikku says brightly, “Better than Lady Yuna’s!”

Sarra is silenced as an unbidden, pleasured flush creeps over her freckled cheeks. She frantically scribbles something on a small white card.

“The elevator over there. Take it to the top floor.” Sarra slides the card over the smooth desk, “This is the access code.”

“Thank you.” Rikku purrs in Spiran. She inwardly kicks herself. Leblanc is surely rubbing off on her.

* * *

Gippal misses the first two Commspherence calls he is meant to be on. He is still wearing last night’s shirt and has his head buried in his arms when Sarra knocks on his door to drop off his mail. There is a bright yellow adhesive note on the front of the magazine at the bottom of the pile.

_The final product, love!_  
_Leblanc_  
_xoxo_

Before Sarra can retreat, Gippal rasps at her about coffee, or something. She pads out of his office door.

About one hour later both adequately hydrated and caffeinated, he changes into a clean shirt. He raises the shutters on the vast office windows. Sunlight filters like a spotlight onto the magazine Sarra left. His eyes fall to the cover of the magazine.

Long tousled, deliberately messy blonde waves tumble past Rikku’s shoulders; one tendril falls over a delicate clavicle and down to the front of the gown. Barely lilac chiffon embraces her breasts, wrapping and ruched tightly around her waist. Almost barely perceptible is a deep purple, glistening, filigree tie that chases the chiffon down to her waist where it knots delicately. The tail of the tie drops below shot and into the unfathomable chiffon of her skirt. Rikku’s striking green eyes penetrate the camera lens and, seemingly candid, her head is tilted, teeth bared in a jovial grin. Her slender arms are softly bent in the act of lifting the vast swathes of chiffon of her skirt, slightly pitching her forward.

_Guardian. Spherehunter. Princess._  
_Lady Rikku tells all._

Upon the white back ground, the gradually deepening purple text declares _Siren_ ’s cover feature. Gippal flips to the centrefold feature.

_Spira’s Al Bhed Princess_

More pictures; Rikku, carefree, smiling in that first fanciful, soft, lyrical lilac gown, achingly euphoric like a Yevonite bride. Then a few pages after: satin, slinky, sultry in a little black dress held up by barely there straps. Silver goggles with black lenses are pushed atop her head with her left hand, reigning in her falsely unruly curls- they cascade down and obscure her right shoulder, as she gazes softly over to the left. Silver thigh-high Al Bhed workboots are strapped up to above her knees; four inches of tanned smooth skin are visible beneath a black lace hem. Muted mint green, her eyes in this picture no longer sparkle like emerald. Her smile is interrupted; her mouth set in a subtle downward wistful curve as she gazes in profile at something lost off camera.

He is jolted from concentration from the trilling of the Commsphere. It is rigged to the blue plasma display screen mounted on the wall opposite to his desk. He groans.

“Answer,” he grumbles, rubbing his face and mustering a professional smile.

“Answering the conference call,” the interface states, and there is a bouncing noise than indicates the call is connecting.

“Hi guys.”

Baralai and Nooj broadcast on to his screen. These chats may have started off as friendly catch ups but they have inevitably become bogged down in protocol, strategy, publicity. Sometimes they meet purely to plot how they present a united albeit hollow front to a media that Gippal personally wants nothing to do with. That they need to have a weekly meeting detailing the finer points in a plan to outsmart the newspapers irritates him more than he cares to admit. Gippal bristles upon realising that the other leaders’ top aides and secretaries are patched in to the call, meticulously documenting another two hours wasted achieving nothing. There is no space for friendly chats with an entourage looking on.

“So, the Blitz stadium is re-opening next week. Obviously the Machine Faction has led the way with the works, with the generosity of the main benefactor, Rin. The Youth League are most certainly in support of all positive renovation in Spira. I intend to be there in person. Baralai?”

“I will be in attendance also. After all, Bevelle’s city planning committee has only yesterday agreed to the renovation of the stadium here.”

There is silence then. Gippal starts after a moment, realising his head has drooped on to his hand. He grits his teeth and performs.

“The main bulk of work is now done. The next week will be spent finalising decorations and giving the event planners free reign.” He grins, “It’s gonna be a great party!”

There is muted, crackly chuckling emitting from his screen. Gippal wonders why this all needs to be written down; maybe he should make Sarra sit in on these sessions. The rest of the meeting passes slowly. It is almost two hours; Gippal doesn’t think anyone would have noticed if he’d dipped out for the last hour of the meeting, as absorbed as the virtual attendees were with local skirmishes between their respective fanatics. Distracted, he watches dust motes dance like pyreflies in the sunlight that streams through the gaps in the blinds. The magazine lies discarded, where he had dropped it in his haste to answer the Commspherence call.

The last outfit. The showstopper.

Rikku’s waist is suffocated by a gleaming metal corset. Her hands accentuate her own waistline sharply; her shoulders are hunched casually, nonchalantly, over this restrictive bodice of pure gold metal. In place of the usual chiffon of a gown, is a birdcage of polished gold. Her hair cascades- tight coils like uncorked champagne, fizzing over her collarbones. There is a barely there suggestive challenge in her eyes; one corner of her lip is sucked in- a tease. Rikku’s vacuumed waist and the metallic gown’s regal sillhouette are exquisite. Where her energy is feminine, the detail is machina- the princess of progress.

Gippal gulps from a mug of cold coffee, transfixed on the page. Rikku’s burnished exoskeleton burns vibrantly in his mind.

The call is over for less than five minutes, before Rikku fumbles into his office.

“Ugh, hi”

He levels his gaze over the rim of his mug.

“Rikku,” he states; it occurs to him that, previously, before the age of sixteen, she was any variant between “Oi”, “Princess” or “Cid’s girl”. Right now, stumbling - oversized overalls and barefaced- none of these titles quite cut it.

“I,” she starts, affecting what he can only describe as shy, “I brought breakfast.”

Before he can object, Rikku is deeply comfortable in the plush office chair opposite his desk. She pushes soft flaky pastry wrapped in brown paper toward him over the desk.

The iced coffee tastes bland due to half melted ice.

“Thank you for taking me home.” She says sweetly, “Did you have a good night?”

He nods, mouth mostly occupied with pastry that is melting in his mouth.

“I did.” He mutters.

“Good, me too.”

“So,” she leads in, “next weekend, the stadium- grand opening- what’s the plan?”

“Fuck if I know,” he dismisses.

Rikku scowls- really?

“Okay, fine." almost incoherent with is mouth full of pastry. He swallows, "Leblanc is handling it,”

Rikku smirks- fine, then. And then rambling; there will be a red carpet, whether he likes it or not- “You’re relaunching the Spiran blitzball scene. People are going to be interested.”

“Oh, really?”

He’s acting unaffected. She’s rolling her eyes.

“Yuna is coming out of hiding to be there. Mainly because Tidus needs to show his face due to Blitz, but still,” she explains, “this is a big deal!”

“Planning parties is not my thing,” he shrugs, “best leave it to an expert.”

“It will be classy, if Leblanc’s involved…” Rikku trails off when she catches Gippal’s sneaky grin.

“How times have changed,” He teases, “You’re really turning into a little clone of her you know”

“Hey! That’s mean! She’s like 40, ew!”

Practically thirteen again in that moment, it feels like nothing has really changed, still trading barbs and insults. Rikku vengefully throws her empty pastry paper at him. It flutters half-heartedly and fails to reach the desk.

“Watch it.” He mock scolds, snorting when Rikku stick hers tongue out. She bounces up and swipes his unfinished iced coffee from the desk. She slinks back over to the plush spinning chair opposite his desk, folding herself up impishly, daring him to retrieve it.

“Hey,” he moans, “I need that way more than you.”

“Well,” she sighs, innocently stirring the ice with the straw, “What would you do if you were me?”

A beat. She’s avoiding his eyes mischievously, initially. She’s solely focused on the whipped cream she’s now scooping into her mouth with the tip of the straw. A satisfied, feline smile stretches onto her face when he huffs at her. Her verdant eyes briefly flick up to meet his for one intense second as she sucks the cream with a faint pop into her mouth. She performatively balances the straw between her two fingers as she withdraws it. She closes her eyes- bliss- like she’s taking the first drag of a cigarette after years of abstinence.

“Hey!”

“You don’t share cigarettes,” she muses, “so I don’t share coffee anymore.”

“I saved your life,” he declares dramatically.

“Hmm, fine,” she places her finger on her chin, “I suppose you deserve the rest of the coffee…”

Without vacating the chair, she pitches forward, lazily proffering the coffee. He’d have to stretch over the desk to try to swipe it. He hesitates at Rikku’s lingering sly smile.

“Come on,” she pouts, “Don’t make me get up.”

He’s reaching for it. She darts up from the chair, giggling predictably, lifting it high and out of his reach.

“Whoopsie,” she quips.

“Right. That’s it.”

He is up then, swifter than he should be able to manage in his hungover state. Rikku shrieks, clambering back on to her chair, coffee cup aloft like a torch. She shivers as the condensation on the cup trickles down the inside of her bare arm. The chair swivels dangerously.

“Shit!” her balance wavers with the momentum of her movement.

He’s there in an instant, gently steadying her with his hands on her hips, softly guiding her down. She braves a glance through one eye as the warmth of his grip leaves her. He hems her in, gripping each arm of the chair either side of her.

“Watch yourself, princess” he mutters. Soft tilt of his lips far too close for safety.

A bright shy smile in response, “You’ve saved me. Again.”

“Of course,” he whispers. Transfixed, she tilts her head up to the magnetic pull of his attention. She is rendered speechless as he leans closer. With heavy effort, he pulls away from her gaze and stares absently over her shoulder. He brings his mouth close to her ear to murmur something to her. She could be underwater because she can barely hear him. Not now she notices that the top few buttons of his clean pressed shirt are hanging open. Faded cologne pervades and she can’t tell where it ends and where his scent begins. The perceptible warmth radiating against her skin even though he isn’t currently touching her, takes her back to dancing last night. Effortless, easy, touching, twirling, laughing the night away. He’s not touching her now. She needs him to touch her now. There is retrospective despair that the alcohol last night had numbed her memory of his touch.

“Couldn’t have you spilling _my_ coffee,” he whispers, breath skittering over her ear lobe. And this time she shivers due to the agonisingly lazy spread of heat down her spine. Her nerves burn then rapidly flood with reactive chill. Paralytic anticipation fades slowly into outrage as he straightens up and swipes the coffee from her lax grip.

“Hey!” she yells. He’s chuckling, standing stubbornly in front of her. It’s a repeat of last night as he uses his height to keep the coffee cup effortlessly out of her reach. Crackling with irritation, her brows furrow. “Give it ba-“

They both visibly startle as the loud shrill Commsphere tone blares into the office. Ruthless referee in their petty playfight. Rikku swears. The coffee, now slick with condensation, slips from Gippal’s hand in his surprise and crashes down onto Rikku.

“Shit,” Rikku is cursing profusely in Al Bhed as the remaining coffee ice hybrid slush spills over her chest. That startles him. Such a string of atrocity had never come out of her mouth before.

“Fuck, sorry,” the call tone is still blaring away, “I have to get this.”

“Ugh,” she grouses, “Do you have a bathroom?”

He gestures vaguely in the right direction. Buttoning up his shirt and composing himself, he answers the call, subtly shushing Rikku.

The Machine Faction had fast grown to potentially be the largest organisation in Spira. Every settlement wanted a piece of modernisation and they initially hadn’t been able to contend with the demand. While Gippal remained acting leader, the organisation was now controlled by a board of members, one of whom was Rin who had generously helped fund the operation to start with. Gippal had needed his business skills as the Faction continued to grow far beyond what is was ever intended for. Where Gippal was happy to tinker with machina and develop new technology, he had never dreamed that the progress they made with machina would ever need such mainstream distribution. He was becoming fatigued with managing the ship, the crew and drawing the map. He’d seconded himself to Luca to set up the new headquarters and oversee construction of the new stadium. This was a passion project he’d dreamed up with Tidus, the first time they’d had a conversation and Gippal had discovered he was an untapped fountain of knowledge on erroneously named _ancient_ machina.

The downside was a weekly leadership meeting which he dreaded increasingly as each week passed.

Rikku ambles back in, making to leave. Gippal darts up from the desk, gently catches her by the arm, well out of shot from the Commsphere.

“What?” she mouths.

He grabs the magazine, scribbling on the yellow sticky note still stuck to its front.

_Give me 30 minutes? Wanna see the new stadium?_

“Gippal? Are you still there?” an unrecognisable voice chimes from the Commsphere.

The minutes fly by. Gippal feigns enthusiasm for the remainder of the call. He is vaguely aware of Rikku silently listening in, mirth in her smile as she flicks lazily through the magazine. Her posture is feline, tucked up neatly on the chair, coiled with mischief. He feels a puff of heat bleed into his cheeks when he catches Rikku watching. Professional demeanour almost crumbling due to her silent teasing giggles. A crawl of embarrassment¬¬ across his skin as one of his oldest friend looks on at him.

At the end of the call, he visibly drops the tension from his shoulders to rest his head on his hands. She catches the relieved smile that bleeds like sunset on to his face. He flashes his gaze up to find Rikku smirking at him. He scowls, false irritation, and rolls his eyes.

“Come on then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi. Been a while... whoops.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Blitz Gala!

“So, what do you think?” he murmurs.

They ascend the stands of the stadium as the sun dips below the horizon. Through the vaulted ceiling that rises vastly like the crown of a diamond, a sunbeam splits and spills on to the bleachers. At the stadium’s zenith, the newly refurbished executive box offers an encapsulating view.

There’s that feline stretch again that she does, a languid cat relishing in the dying light as evening gathers round. Her peppy constant chatter wilts away on the climb. Silence poises between them and he finds himself leaning in to hear her.

“It’s…” she starts. Her gaze sweeps over the balcony before her. Plush black velvet seats interspersed with simple golden side tables make up the viewing deck. A barely perceptible glass barrier affronts them offering an uncut view. Across the stadium, other smaller boxes mirror theirs, mounted strategically atop fluid video screens.

Almost tentatively, she caresses the velvet upholstery of the last row of seats. This is luxury that is not often found in Spira, even to the glittering guardian echelon. It’s practically Bevellian in its opulence, but muted, somehow, modish.

 _New Luca_.

A Leblancism she’s embarrassed to find herself using, even internally.

“I have no words.” she says quietly.

“That’s a first.” he teases. Rikku jolts from her silent admiration to pout at him, predictably.

“Ooh,” her eyes alight upon the structure behind him, missed in her hasty exploration of the view, “there’s a bar!”

Child in a candy shop, Rikku bounds up to the block of marble fashioned into a bar, an extension of the very floor. She vaults up, perching her weight on to her stomach to peek at the contents behind.

“Fully stocked!” she reports, then turns and leans back on her elbows. Ankles crossed, her well-loved, scuffed boots are incongruent to the gleaming marble floor. Pink cheeks and faint freckles, Rikku in her recovering hungover glory beckons him over, tendrils of hair again lost to all order and tickling her neck. Dishevelled, expectant, her posture invites him to drink with her. He accepts, already walking over, loosening his tie. He feels startlingly overdressed in answer to her scruffy lazy day glamour. Rikku steals his tie from where it spools on the bar, a scribble of ink on embossed writing paper. She twists it, wraps it, ties it round her fingers, her wrist. Kittenishly transfixed and poised on the barstool.

“A drink for the lady?” he offers. From nowhere Gippal has procured a napkin, which is now draped over his arm, chilled white wine in his other hand.

She giggles. He pours- flamboyant and clumsy- into large triangular stemless wine glasses. In the slight humidity, condensation swiftly appears.

“Won’t you get in trouble?” she muses, after her first grateful gulp. Gippal shrugs.

The wine is a salve for the frayed edges of the day- the uncertainty that tripped her up on her way to his office, which still lingers even though it’s been a few hours and they are settled into amiable silence. It dissipates as the sweet nectar of the wine infuses her. 

Nineteen going on twenty, Rikku is lazily rotating her wine glass, reclining, perched on her other elbow. Watching the sunset with her legs crossed, prim, proper. Yet if she blinks too long, she is elsewhere, leaning against a hovercraft, guzzling warm beer, wishing it was cold. Legs crossed on the sand, bumping elbows with Gippal, laughing with Brother and Buddy. Those last days of friendship on Bikanel, fifteen going on hero.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks. At once she’s aware of his focus on her. Her loose grip on his discarded tie has allowed it to half unravel towards the floor. She scrunches it in her hand, winding it again around her spare wrist after placing her wine on the bar.

“Do you remember,” she starts, grin creeping unbidden across her face.

She closes her eyes, and is transported back to Bikanel, the familiar weight of his bomber jacket on her shoulders. The unacknowledged ritual of friendship they fall into every time they stayed out too late, rummaging dusty and dirty in the sand for secrets. The moon creeps up on them after dusk; then night, and the inevitable chill of the dark desert. Waiting for Brother and Buddy, she drowns pleasantly in his jacket. She lights his cigarette. He always leaves them in his pocket with his father’s lighter. Her delicate fingers fumble to flick the small fire into being; his lengthy exhale after the first drag is as clear as yesterday. The quiet gratitude of his conspiratorial smile triggering a curling heat in her stomach, back then, and it disappears with the snap shut of the lighter and her accompanying, contradictory lecture on the perils of smoking.

“Um, princess…” he waves his hand in front of her face. She is frozen in reverie, his tie pulled tight around her wrist.

“Sorry,” she starts, “Remember that time I stole Pop’s cigars, and you pretended it was you?” 

“Oh, Shiva, don’t remind me. I swear he made me oil every hinge of every single piece of machina at Home for that,” he despairs with his playful smile, “You still owe me for that one by the way.”

“Is saving my father’s life not enough reward?” she teases. He rolls his eyes.

“Fine,” finger on her lips in thought, “how about… an invitation to Yunie’s wedding?”

“Bold of you to assume that I haven’t been invited.”

“What!” she exclaims. “I don’t even have one yet.”

“Tidus invited me.” He offers. Rikku scowls then.

“Since when are you secretly best friends with Tidus?

“Since we designed this place together,” he explains and she quirks a disbelieving eyebrow. “Dream or not, he has first-hand experience of Zanarkand tech so made sense to pull him in. Most useful man in the world.”

“Sounds like a great friendship.” She quips drily. He explains how the initial meetings to pick his brains turned quickly to debates about Blitzball, then drinks over a game. Rikku can vividly imagine Tidus’ infectious puppy dog enthusiasm, trying to help bring Spira in to the future.

“Hey,” she pouts, “the other night you were acting like you had no idea how Tidus and Yunie ended up together.”

“We don’t talk about all the mushy stuff. Just Blitz, and tech, and fighting, and stuff.”

“He doesn’t talk about Yuna?” she presses.

“Ugh,” he runs his hand through his hair, “That’s not what I meant. We just don’t really talk about love, princess.”

Maybe he says this purposefully to distract her, she isn’t sure. His new favourite pet name is niggling at her. She blushes.

“Stop calling me that. It’s weird.”

“I’ve always called you that.”

“Yeah but people will hear you and think that I actually expect people to call me that, and they’ll think I’m full of it, and-”

“What people?” he gestures wildly around them.

“Seriously, you don’t know what these reporters are like. I swear they’re everywhere.” She drains the rest of her glass and shudders.

“Why do you play up to it then?” he asks, slight furrow between his brow, almost invisible beneath his eye patch.

“I do not!” she protests, hurt, “What else am I meant to do? It’s worse if you try to ignore them, trust me. That’s why Yuna hides away most of the year. She wants – no, deserves- peace and quiet and there’s no reprieve here.”

“Such a hard life for her.”

Indignation fizzles between them.

“What do you have against Yuna?” she demands, eyes narrowing. Restlessly, she sips again from her glass but it’s empty. He pours again.

“Nothing, honestly, we just don’t-” pauses, grasping for the word, “gel. Come on, Rikku, you know that. Any small talk we have is a train wreck.”

“You’re just too…” she offers.

“What?” he interrupts before she can finish. She giggles.

“… uh, I don’t know… flirtatious…” she instantly regrets the word as he smirks, “for your own good sometimes. Thought Yunie was gonna pass out first time she met you.”

“I have that effect on women, princess.”

She lightly jostles her leg against his then, and spins around on the stool.

“How come,” she asks, softly kicking the marble bar- she quiets his restless leg with a firm delicate hand on his knee, “how come you’re never in the magazines?”

He laughs then, half expecting something more serious from the lengthy silence preceding the question.

“I know secret fun places where the camera will never find me.” He leans in, reclaims his stolen tie by untangling it carefully from her fingers and wrist.

“Creepy much?” but she is laughing, “if you mean you show all your friends up to this place and share out your own expensive wine stock, then, wow, I feel so special.”

It’s his turn to absentmindedly play with his tie, rolling it up into a tight coil, then letting it drop back out straight. It is black, cheaply made fake silk, reluctantly purchased to be up to date in the style of New Lucan business. It’s a relief that it is not currently around his neck. Guado, Al Bhed, Hypello united supposedly by fashion, but it feels more like a uniform, in Luca. It doesn’t matter here anymore. Clean colours, sharper lines, tasteful rejection of heavy pattern and colour clash has risen up on Luca’s residents. By purpose, the very antithesis to Bevellian style, although the more fashionable and minimalistic, the more expensive the clothes, buildings, places paradoxically became.

“I’ll take you there next time,” he says quietly. Rikku is pitching his barstool from side to side with her foot.

“Good, because I’m feeling all left out.” she moans but true good spirit is belied by her sweet smile. She stops pushing his stool then, pitches her tumbler of wine forward to clink with his.

“Next time,” she confirms. They gulp from their glasses. There is a moment of weighty eye contact. Gippal leans toward her and suddenly grabs the side of her bar stool and spins her round. She yelps.

“Hey!”

A dramatic stream of Al Bhed erupts between them and she chases him around the plush seats. They settle into the front row, and bask the rest of the sunset away, deliciously sleepy from half a bottle of wine and the muted warmth of the day’s last sunbeams.

* * *

_Exclusive! Party Girl Riri snapped with machina tycoon boyfriend!_

A few days later, Leblanc blusters in to the fitting room, quite late as usual, frosted coffee, oversized black cape, hair too big for a random weekday.

“Are you and Gippal dating?” she demands, in place of a simple greeting. 

“What, no? Why?” Rikku spins herself from side to side, scowling at the cut of the gown which currently dwarfs her, wincing as a snugly placed pin nips at the skin of her stomach. Leblanc is frantically brandishing a magazine at her. Rikku almost topples forward to grasp it.

“Well, shit.”

She hates this magazine. Luca loves this magazine. She particularly hates it in this moment. The photograph of her and Gippal on the front page embarrasses her. Rikku clutches his arm, laughing, breasts dangerously close to falling out of the ridiculously low cut dress she’d worn to Leblanc’s party. Gippal simply looks drunk, loose tie and collar undone. And yes, she supposes she can begrudgingly admit that his blazer around her shoulders is suspicious.

“Ugh, I’ve told you not to believe anything you read in here!” she scolds. Leblanc shrugs.

“But, love, you two are very cute.” She insists.

“You were there!” she whines, “we are not dating, promise!”

“How am I to know, _Riri_? I didn’t see you all night!”

Leblanc takes social butterfly to new extremes. She always does this; laments the lack of quality time she spends with Ormi, Logos, Rikku at these ridiculous events. Leblanc, as she blazes the trail in all that is new and post-Sin in fashion, is from Old Luca money. Her designer career owes its initial success- pre-Calm when only Luca really had a fashion scene- to her relative fame as a socialite. Glittering high class women in their twenties. Leblanc had grown bored of the fusty and busy patterning, the suffocating, shapeless layers of material that would make them sweat. She’d taken scissors and pins to a disgusting gown her mother had once insisted she wear, and had never looked back. Leblanc is the sidekick in the magazines, but she is the centre of attention at every party Rikku attends with her. There are hundreds of people that Leblanc knows from her past as one of Luca’s most eligible brides. Old Lucan society circles her parties, ready to swoop and swipe at her attention.

Gippal’s company has been a refreshing reprieve from the near constant string of introductions these parties inevitably become whenever Rikku attempts to stick to Leblanc’s side. Rikku’s initial rose tinted lust for these parties, with their delicate crystal glasses of champagne and handsome wait staff always perfectly timed with the refills, has turned to a restless irritation at the rehearsed small talk and canned compliments, which were as expected as the double cheek kiss she had learned to greet all new acquaintances with.

“He’s a childhood friend.” She offers. This bores Leblanc who unceremoniously dumps her cape on the ground and shoos the seamtress away. She is tucking and tweaking and tearing strips out of her own design. She is firm with Rikku, pushing her this way and that to examine the dress from every conceivable angle.

“I hate it, don’t you?” She finally says.

“It … isn’t awful?” Rikku tries, more kindly than the ridiculous layered bronze gown deserves.

“You look like a Funguar on it’s wedding day, love.”

Rikku creases with laughter. Perhaps her favourite discovery about Leblanc- over the slow course of this strange friendship they’ve formed- is the woman’s unmatched wit.

“You heard me! Get it off!”

Rikku isn’t sure whether Leblanc yells at her or the seamstress. It truly is a two person job, though. Rikku becomes inextricably flustered as her and the seamstress pull gently and, eventually, frantically to unlace her. Leblanc has retreated to a clothing rack, frantically pulling garments onto the floor.

“Rikku!” she chimes, perfectly manicured fingers summoning her over.

“Um, you realise the event is in, like, a week, right?”

“Yes, I know that, love.”

“Have we really got enough—“ she starts. Futility because Leblanc is not listening.

“Hmm, you see, I was avoiding something so modern but maybe this is better suited. Silver, though, I thought this maybe wasn’t your colour.”

Rikku balks at the barely there shimmering number she unearths from one of the trunks towards the back of the warehouse.

“I made this when I was nineteen,” Leblanc enthuses, “mainly to upset mother.”

Leblanc and the seamstress work to pin Rikku in. Leblanc mutters about the bra cups, replacing them with something smaller to fit. Rikku swats her hands away when she is trying to pinch the fabric in at the top. The placement of exquisitely embroidered tulle over a similarly embellished bodice, silver iridescent beading on shimmering translucent silver netting, gives the illusion that the material allows a glimpse of her naked body. The length of the deconstructed chiffon skirt tricks the eye that this is in fact an elegant gown built over a slip of a a nude underdress. The skirt splits to reveal the entirety of her left leg. Rikku is speechless. She looks sultry and sophisticated, even without the make-up and hair.

“Let’s get this hair out of the way,” Leblanc is perched on tiptoes, and gathers Rikku’s waves into a high ponytail. With her hair away from her collarbones, her eyes are drawn to the glittering straps that caress her right shoulder, and the straps on the other side, by design, dropping off the shoulder. She looks like Shiva- the feminine form clear to see but the opulence and construction of the dress is somehow neither too risqué nor inappropriate for the red carpet. 

“I’m sure we can get this fitted by Saturday, love.”

* * *

Like the lustrous surface of the waves beneath Luca’s evening sun, the triangles of glass that form the stadium’s geometric façade glitter. Glass and marble facets interplay to form the pavilion of a gargantuan diamond that looms brilliantly over the city. Vast gold brushed metal columns cushion it, solitaire, atop the harbour’s waves. Luca’s betrothal to progress bold and brazen.

A red carpet stretches from the atrium towards the harbour. Humidity sticks as close as the crowd to the barrier. There is a perceptible throb of pressure. Excitement presses in from all sides as sleek black hovercraft with covered passenger cabs approach. Screams erupt like rain from pregnant clouds- gleeful high pitched peals of thunder- to greet Spira’s celebrities, whenever they deign to appear.

In the nearby hotel, Gippal quickly learns that with Leblanc, his life is easier when her orders are followed. He struggles to get his head round her master plan which involves all the guests of honour hiding here, only to take the long hovercars round the corner to walk into the new stadium. She says that the red carpet bit is more exciting than the event itself. He tries to softly tell her that she’s put a lot of effort into the party and he’s sure that will be the highlight.

“A blitz gala!” she had exclaimed, over a dizzying mood board at the initial planning session two months prior. Rin had laughed and patted him on the back, in his patronising way. Gippal had given in eventually, and let her plan, as doubts about her taste had long since faded with each progressively impressive magazine cover.

“I don’t know why it takes them so long to get ready, ya?” Wakka shakes his head over a whiskey sour. Tidus chuckles, beckoning Gippal over. He has started to develop a taste for champagne- Rikku’s fault. The glasses are different to the usual thin flutes. More like curved martini glasses, small wide lipped fishbowls.

Leblanc is however ready. Demure as always. Officially, he thinks, the fact she is not wearing black at a public event must mean something. Rikku has at least offered him her theories on her usually monochrome palette. She bustles around the hotel bar in a long burgundy velvet gown, with a plunging neckline supported by thin satin straps, her exposed back an alabaster canvas. Hair coiffed, pinned, a lighter blonde than when they had all saved the world together. There is a modest side split to its skirt, and she clatters authoritatively in her black stilettos.

“Boys!” she declares, “I have your pocket squares!”

She approaches Tidus first. A pale blue square of jacquard, embroidered with white thread, filigree clouds on a small cutting of sky. She folds it neatly and tucks it in to the pocket of his dinner jacket. And round the room she goes, with purposefully selected swatches of cloth, different for each gentleman. Kimahri simply raises his hand in polite decline as she approaches, the only member of their party not dressed in a dinner jacket, instead in a formal version of Ronso attire. Nooj perhaps looks the most uncomfortable, stiff in his slate grey suit. He is perplexed, as he always is where Leblanc is concerned, when she slots the black satin square into his pocket.

“And for you, Mr. Machina Tycoon!” she quips and Gippal frowns at the strange nickname. She approaches him last. The fabric is many folded layers of delicately beaded fabric, a glitzy silver square sitting boldly against the black of his jacket.

“I don’t even know what Yuna is wearing.” Tidus mutters. He’s nursing a glass of water. “I have to take this off and change into Blitz gear anyway.”

Gippal smirks and nods towards Leblanc, “It’s all about the spectacle, she says.”

“Used to be the best thing about Spira at first you know? No screaming fans.” 

Tidus grins sheepishly when Wakka and Gippal rip into him.

“Such a hard life, ya!”

Leblanc’s hummingbird fervour settles. She applies dark red matte lipstick expertly, snapping her pocket mirror shut as the chauffeur appears.

“Ms. Leblanc?”

“Come, Gippal.” She motions him over, fellow gracious host. Ormi and Logos follow behind them. She links her arm through his and walks them to the hovercraft. He turns to wave goodbye to the others. He catches a glimpse of Paine’s characteristic silhouette. Tall, in a heavy satin wide legged jumpsuit with a matching cape blazer. He nods and she smirks as he is whisked away.

* * *

“Yunie! We need you!” Rikku wails.

“I’m coming, one sec.” she calls, muffled by the sound of a running tap.

The design of this dress, as ridiculous as it is stunning, had required an intense fitting session where Rikku had almost fallen asleep standing up. And the fit is tight, like a second skin. She feels as naked as though she had just changed into Lady Luck. Thankfully the overall effect was still more glamour than scandal. Lulu, long suffering and long since changed into her own deep purple evening gown was holding the two opposing sides of the fabric together while Rikku scrambled in futility to pull the tiny zipper up.

Yuna rushes over, hair longer after two years, and styled into soft romantic curls that brush her shoulders. She shivers in a pale pink silk slip of a bathrobe.

“Sorry! I forget I’m usually put in to these things by, like, a team of women.”

“Breathe out.” Lulu commands.

Lulu pulls the fabric tauter than seems physically safe, and Rikku opts out of breathing for a few seconds. There is a safe tight sense of relief when Yuna cleanly slides the zipper up. And Rikku relaxes then, jostling around and stretching to check in the mirror for any stray sightings of her naked breasts. With affection, Lulu shakes her head.

“Well,” she muses, “It may not be practical but you look wonderful.”

“Thanks.” Rikku breathes. 

“My turn!”

Designing Yuna’s gown had been a longer process. It is in fact the only gown of the evening created especially for the event. Yuna had initially flat out refused to allow Leblanc to plan her outfit. It had taken Rikku weeks to convince Yuna to hear them out. Before the spa in Besaid had been opened to the public, Rikku and Leblanc had been invited by Yuna to experience the new resort exclusively, and early. Over a small tapas style lunch and a multitude of tropical cocktails, mutual distrust had melted its way to a tipsy companionship. Leblanc had sketched her vision for Yuna’s dress on a napkin, and somehow with her penchant for dramatic and illustrious verbal theatrics, convinced her.

“Absolutely no feathers though and I mean it!”

Leblanc had been startingly affronted. 

“How tacky do you think I am, darling?”

Rikku remembers giggling hysterically, as Yuna regaled Leblanc with the horror of the last gown she’d been forced to wear. In fact, in the tipsy heat of the afternoon Besaid sun, Yuna’s sham wedding to Seymour was hilarious.

“Yes, well,” Leblanc snaps, “these Bevellian wedding dress designers have no taste.”

Now a mere hour before the Blitz stadium opening, Yuna’s bespoke gown remains a mystery to Rikku. Somehow, she has missed each and every one of Yuna’s fittings in Luca due to conflicting shoots and appearances.

Yuna unearths the beast with a painstakingly slow unzip. The dark garment cover parts to reveal a pale blue heavy satin gown. The material is not smooth but forms rhythmic ridges of texture; ripples frozen in time. A uniform pattern that forms the entirety of the dress, a full skirt, then the bodice gathers up on to the left shoulder. The satin is embroided with white silk thread, a delicate floral painting repeating over the gown so that the effect from a distance is that of clouds on a clear sky. A single black satin band encircles the waist, forming a stiff small squared bow, the tails of which drop down the right side of the skirt.

“Leblanc calls it something like- je-card?”

“Jacquard?” Rikku offers. Yuna nods fervently.

“Oh Yuna this is gorgeous.” Lulu breathes.

“Who’d have guessed I’d be having Leblanc of all people as my personal stylist.”

“It’s so you.” Rikku confirms.

Yuna’s well trusted guardians manipulate her into the dress, albeit movements restricted by her own impractical garment.

“Okay, time to go!” Yuna exclaims as she slips her feet into heels, gripping Lulu’s shoulder as she miraculously appears to grow by five inches.

* * *

Gippal slides with some grace into the sleek black carriage, and others soon join. Firstly Rin, Shinra and select aides. Then, Calli, drowing in a bardot puff of pink chiffon and murmuring excitedly to a friend, equally glamourous in emerald lace. She is vaguely familiar, but he can’t quite place from where as their heads bow over a magazine. 

There is sudden gasp as Calli’s plus one looks up.

“Sarra?”

He instantly recognises the young girl- now she looks at him- from the daily grumbled greeting he gives her every morning.

“Sir-“

“Don’t call me that-“

“-uh, hi!”

Calli snatches the zine from Sarra’s hand and shoves it down next to her.

“What are you reading?”

“Um, nothing,” Calli chirps.

Leblanc pounces across the car and snatches it from its place next to Calli.

“Oh!” she exclaims gleefully, “It’s this awful gossip magazine that has been planning your wedding to our dear Rikku!”

“Give me that!” he snatches it, “For fuck- oh- well this is bullshit.”

He frowns, mutters to himself – _machina tycoon, really!_ \- and yet inexplicably transfixed all the same.

He looks up eventually. Calli, Sarra and Leblanc have all leaned towards him, moon-eyed.

“We are not dating!”

“But what about when she brought you lunch, the other day, and you went off for the whole—“

Sarra stutters into silence at the sheer warning painted over Gippal’s features.

Calli and Leblanc collapse into giggles. Sarra blushes.

“Sorry, sir.”

Gippal laughs. Because she is mortified, a solemn hand covering her mouth.

“Do we have any champagne?” he asks, and someone presses a bottle into his hand from the front of the car. There are playful shrieks as he pops the cork. He pours clumsily into fresh plastic flutes, as the hover jolts into action.

Gippal and Leblanc’s walk from the hover to the atrium is a flurry of flashing bulbs; a cacophony of cheers and chatter that merge along the crowd. He barely blinks before they are swept through the doors, wait staff on tenterhooks and buzzing, instantly on hand to pull them away and towards the executive box.

“How lovely to have the hard bit out of the way.” Leblanc declares. She prowls the viewing deck and murmurs delighted appreciation as her hands touch the black velvet seats, the cool gilded side tables.

Leblanc knocks her first glass of champagne back, in such a startlingly similar gesture to how Rikku did almost a week ago now. Gippal goes to light his first cigarette then checks himself, and instead takes up one of the full glasses for himself. Other guests who had in fact shared the hovercraft with him now start to filter in behind them. Calli; the powder pink childish chiffon dress styled into something sickeningly candy vibrant yet on trend; her sleek long brown hair is gathered up into a long ponytail. Her look is completed with the wonder barely hidden on her face. In fact, Gippal isn’t entirely sure why she’s there but this becomes apparent when Leblanc sweeps the girl up to her side and settles her- and Sarra- in one of the seats next to her. New protégé, then, he suspects. He isn’t sure if Leblanc is exercising generosity or just the next calculated step in her master plan to take over Spira’s celebrity empire.

Maybe she is an age old sorceress drawing off the energy of the young and beautiful. He laughs to himself. He puts it down to the blood red palette of her overall look tonight. He can see the headline.

_Queen of fashion Leblanc EXPOSED as century old vampire._

Rin strides in shortly after Calli is scooped under the mother hen’s wing. He is after all a main machine faction partner, or rather main benefactor of the whole shebang.

“Gippal,” says Rin. There is an eternal hint of mirth lacing everything the man says and it dogs Gippal’s every venture. As though the whole operation is a joke to him. The way he sips his champagne and playfully surveys the entire room, its inhabitants. The infinitesimal crease between his eyes, the barely percepitble twitch at the corner of his mouth. Gippal leans in slightly for the verdict.

“Now THIS is what I’m talking about!”

Cid’s circus boom of a voice snaps his attention away from Rin’s scrutiny. 

“Shiva!” Gippal murmurs, as some of his champagne spills from the ridiculously wide rimmed glass that holds it.

Rin chuckles, somehow spilling nothing, as Cid claps him violently on the back. Brother and Buddy slink in to the room, heads bowed towards each other in quiet heated conversation.

“You’ve done good, boy!” Cid blusters, “Al Bhed making mark on this damn planet!”

Cid is vigorously shaking Gippal’s hand then. He is discomfited immediately. He’s barely speaks to Cid; in fact he lets Rin handle any and all communication with him. The man absolutely terrifies and inspires him, or at least did, as a teenager, and part of him will never shake that cowed respect. There is the air of one too many beverages already in the clumsiness of Cid’s grip, confirmed by his brusque, mild tearfulness.

“Your mother would be so pro---“

“Ah Cid, let's pay our respects to the lovely lady responsible for tonight’s event.” Gippal’s wide silent plea for rescue in the glare he shoots at Rin is received. Rin steers him away into the vicinity of Leblanc.

Buddy doesn’t speak when they approach, barely suppressed mirth preventing him from being able to drink from his glass. Brother pats Gippal on the back, unspoken appreciation and acknowledgment.

“How much has he had?”

“Ah, not much,” Brother sheepishly rubs the back of his head, “I forgot. Whiskey. Wine. He mixes, badly.”

“We’ll sober him up with a cigar in a bit.” Buddy finally offers, shrugging.

Barely twenty minutes later he is leaning over the balcony, chatting to Baralai about the skeleton of a plan for renovating Bevelle’s stadium, when Leblanc pinchingly accosts him. 

“Here they are!” she enthuses, pulling his attention to the vast screen on the other side of the stadium, running Luca’s local news broadcast, for now.

He turns to the screen. The red carpet arrivals are being shown systematically on the screen. First, Lulu and Wakka emerge hand in hand. Wakka, unable to contain his gleeful smile whilst simultaneously abashed. Lulu’s conspiratorial smile, and firm loop with his arm, is keeps him on track. He is practically an excitable puppy on a leash. The camera cuts then. 

Rikku emerges with unforeseen grace. Far removed from the clumsy heap she had curled herself into on these very chairs six days before, she draws herself up with a precise collectedness. Reserved, serious; an emergent secretive smile is caught on camera at the opportune moment where she glances over her shoulder. She makes intermittent blazing eye contact with the lens. Illusory, sharp, artistic make up, she embodies the very fashion magazine covers she is now known for. Her face mesmorises him, but he follows the slick subtle shimmer on her collarbones, bare, tanned. The camera is not close enough but if he closes his eyes and imagines that she is just there, he can see the dusting of freckles on her chest. And then, the dress. At first he thinks she has sprayed her naked body with glitter, so snug is the fit of her gown. Intricate lines of beading and silver thread playfully pattern the bodice and leotard. One shoulder is held with four glistening beaded straps, and on the other side the fall lazily off and carress her arm. Her right leg is almost entirely exposed, the other covered obliquely- skirt of the gown in the same glittering fabric. In this beaded armour, she prowls down the red carpet with airy warrior poise.

He can already see the headline tomorrow.

_Bad girl Riri bares all in barely-there dress._

He gulps. Right there on the screen, Rikku reactivates a teenaged version of himself. In denial about his attraction to her; waking up intractably hot and stifling frustrated moans; recurring dreams of her unzipping herself from her machina worksuit, again, and again in his mind. Now here in her full womanhood and Gippal is helplessly snagged again in her web. If she looks at him the way she looks at the cameras he might come apart. He wants to pull her hair. He wants to rip her dress off. 

He doesn’t even see Yuna and Tidus emerge, the final guests of honour before the night can begin. He quashes any hint of his attraction as Leblanc is asking his opinion. He murmurs what he thinks is adequate praise and retreats towards the bar.

He is relieved to see Buddy sat there. He’d followed the same images on the much smaller screen suspended above the bar.

“I actually kinda forget Rikku is a girl sometimes.” Buddy says as he sinks in to the seat next to him. Gippal is slightly vindicated that he hadn’t been the only one mesmerized.

“No mistaking it tonight.” Gippal murmurs. Buddy smiles to himself then, silently starts to form some kind of retort, then thinks better of it.

“Best keep her away from Brother and Cid in that get up. Wouldn’t want any public fireworks amongst the Al Bhed royals. They are hella overprotective.”

“Well, fuck, keep them away from the magazines.” He groans.

Buddy claps him on the back. He changes the subject, trying to reel Gippal in to some strange party he and Brother have planned in the coming weeks. He is skeptical then he mentions the venue.

“Come on, man. We know you love the place. Be rude to miss it.”

He is assured that the transport will be discreet and head off any stray cameras, so they could all let their hair down and debauch in security. Like old times. He nods. A few more glasses of champagne and he knows he will be easily swayed, swept along in the glamour and buzz of the company. The princess and her three horsemen. He vividly remembers the silly nickname his mother had for the four of them, her strict orders that he play nice. Rikku, the tag along, that unfortunate younger sister, straggling along behind them.

* * *

It takes the next two hours but the stands fill with spectators. The round of small talk, drink, air kisses, constant compliments. Gippal, definitely, avoiding her. The buzz builds in the stadium, and Rikku can tell the game is soon to start. She glances towards the bar, mid laugh. Gippal stands alone resting on his elbows. She catches him nodding to the bartender- non verbal permission to view the festivities. He appears distracted, wistfully staring into the depths of his champagne glass. Words die on her lips.

“I’ll catch up with you properly later,” she touches Paine on the arm, who nods and turns her attention back to Baralai. 

She approaches him. He doesn’t acknowledge her at first. The general buzz of noise emanating from the lower stadium, the crystalline commentary breaking out over the speakers, drowns out her hello. Blitz off is soon, and excitement is almost palpable in the air around them.

“I don’t think you’ll see much standing there.” She says, resting herself against the bar in a mirror of his slouch. He slowly looks up to meet her eyes. Weariness is replaced with a soft smile.

“Distracted.” He murmurs, breaking eye contact as his face settles back in to neutrality. He drains the last morsel of his drink.

“Gippal,” Rikku grips his forearm; she thinks he should be having more fun. She gestures swiftly at him to come close so she can whisper. There is that familiar scent he now carries, over the last week it has become etched in to her mind. A signature scent, although it does not remind her of Bikanel, but instead recalls their last two rendezvous, as alcohol addled as they had been.

“We need more champagne.” She whispers it urgently. At first she thinks he shivers as her breath lightly ghosts over his ear lobe. She realizes in fact his shoulders are shaking with laughter.

“You’re insatiable,” he mutters hopelessly, “You know that?”

She shrugs innocently. Flutters her eyelashes.

“Well, I am Spira’s Al Bhed princess,” she leans into the tease, “I demand nothing short of the best.”

“Take your pick.” He gestures over the bar at the selection on offer. She hesitates.

“Really?”

“Pretty sure there is only one type of champagne back there.”

“Serve myself then, shall I?” she grumbles, but the grin betrays her.

She makes a show of rummaging around in the refrigerated section of the bar, quickly locating a matte gold metal ice bucket, and two fresh crystal gold rimmed glasses. Her discarded glass a few inches away with the imprint of her lipstick, nude tonight, still blemishing the clear glass.

“Aha!” she suddenly exclaims, pooping up like a cork herself from behind the bar. Gippal shakes his head as she places the bottle down with a shrill clang as it catches the ice bucket. He opens the bottle as she carries herself back to the front of the bar. She adjusts the bodice of her dress. Imperceptible shift of the material, inching it up. 

“This is a lovely dress but it’s driving me mad!” she grouses.

“Rikku…” he murmurs. Her newly refilled glass awaits.

“Hmm?” she is preoccupied, trying to smooth imaginary creases from the gown. She slowly pulls her gaze up, blinks once at his expectant hold on his own glass.

“A toast,” he starts. She takes up her own glass, genuine smile gracing her features.

“To what?” she asks innocently.

“To making headlines.”

She sips sooner than his words sink in, almost chokes. She places her glass down in panic. Liquid spills over her lips, a single sparkling thread of champagne weaves down her chin. It streaks down the curve of her neck to collect in the hollow between her collarbones. Her hand moves swiftly to wipe the moisture from her lips. Gippal intercepts before she makes it. He swipes it away with his thumb and brackets her face; fingertips resting softly at the edge of her jaw, the side of her neck. She leans in to his touch involuntarily- a shiver races through her- and the warmth of his fingers alights a reactive thirsty chill in every nerve ending of her body. Perhaps an hour passes as she holds the inhale of her breath. She is aware of how close they are standing, the focused soft sweep of his eyes over her features. Sudden unexpected proximity.

Tonight, a leonine queen; bold curt lines of eyeliner cut over dazzling layers of rusted gold eyeshadow- a genius clash with the green of her eyes. A single long blonde braid coils predatory over her shoulder, tumbling from on high. As she tilts in to his touch, the light slides like rain over the slick shimmer that highlights her cheekbones, and a darker shadow of make up below this chases this irradiant line. His attention is drawn- and some distant voice in his mind chimes that it’s about time- to her lips- now slack, surrendered, seductive, expectant, numb. The kittenish smile playing on her features only moments before, gone.

At this moment, an impressive bang and flash of light erupts above them. Fireworks. Rikku releases her held breath. Startled, she draws closer. Her fingers find purchase with a soft caress to the underside of his lapel.

“Do you know how fucking beautiful you are.” 

It certainly isn’t a question.

Lust thrums from the corner of her lips, where he sweeps his thumb across them, and swoops straight and sharp as an arrow down the valley between her breasts to settle sweetly and unspeakably low between her hips. Reflexively her grip on his jacket tightens. She can’t be certain whether she hears or feels his words. The fireworks crackle and burst above them, sudden splashes of rainbowed light dancing in the sky. She pulls him closer. She is flush against him. As everyone around is transfixed with the skies above, she instead gives in to the gravity of his kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know if you wanna a link to the pinterest for the fic, featuring all the outfits I try and fail to describe. Nanowrimo is gonna get this fic finished so more to come soon. Comments are life <3 Thanks x


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The afterparty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Explicit. Here lies the porn... From "In the moonlight..." if that ain't your thing, or you reading this at work (hehe). Comments are life x

_To reiterate:_

_“Do you know how fucking beautiful you are.”_

_It certainly isn’t a question._

_Lust thrums from the corner of her lips, where he sweeps his thumb across them, and swoops straight and sharp as an arrow down the valley between her breasts to settle sweetly and unspeakably low between her hips. Reflexively her grip on his jacket tightens. She can’t be certain whether she hears or feels his words. The fireworks crackle and burst above them, sudden splashes of rainbowed light dancing in the sky. She pulls him closer. She is flush against him. As everyone around is transfixed with the skies above, she instead gives in to the gravity of his kiss._

Her body opens up, pressing involuntarily against him as his kiss becomes more insistent. Crushing the lapels of his jacket in the thirsty grip of her fingers, her other hand snakes up and touches his neck with her last vestige of caution, stuttering to a pause there. Featherlight. Then she surrenders because the hand cupping the curve of her neck strokes a tantalizing and soft line behind her ear. He pulls her somehow closer and she wants to rip his jacket, his shirt, off. They break apart only to breathe. Equally blown pupils take one another in and snap them back to reality.

“Why haven’t we-“

“No idea,” he murmurs into the corner of her mouth and then he’s kissing her again. Her skin burns where his fingers print onto her body and every untouched part of her floods with cold.

Darkness seems to draw around, along with applause from the crowd that sounds like the first smack of rain on the ground in a storm. They pull apart, flush against each other, slightly awestruck. It feels like silence to the fireworks moments ago. Rikku reaches between them, exhales and bites her bottom lip. She wipes away the smudge of lipstick that is imprinted there on his face. Her lips burn with the aftershock. She can’t pull her eyes away. She finds his hand in the space between them and tugs him after her gently, through the double doors, striding into the light and glare of the corridor. The door softly shuts. It is empty, colder, out here in the hallway.

She pulls him with her, placing her weight against the wall. A chill runs up her back, she wants him warm against her. One hand steadies them on the wall, and the other settles and caresses the seam of her bodice. His thumb ghosts over where her nipple should be. Firm but frustratingly intangible through the fabric of her dress.

“Is this-“ he starts, but Rikku interrupts, brazenly taking matters into her own hands, "- a good idea?"

Her hand finds its way into his hair, and her fingers lightly caresses his neck. Gippal wraps his arms around her, possessive across her back, the other tangling itself into the long tail of the braid, coiling itself into his hand. Her hands work their way between his jacket, his shirt, then one loosens his tie, races over his buttons, counting, calculating how difficult to undress him right here. He pulls away for short bursts, false-starting flickers of self-control. One eventually catches.

“Rikku-“

She shuts him up with the pressure of her kiss.

“People will find us.“ he murmurs. She pulls his lip gently between her teeth.

A sobering alarm bell. She withdraws.

“Take me home.” She commands quietly. He nods, still stunned, still stuck to her, pulled into orbit. “Now.”

Rikku leads them down the corridor, towards the exit. Too dazed to know where they are, he follows.

“Rikku!”

The boom of Cid’s voice as he stumbles into their path, from the door of the toilets, shocks them still as though doused in icy cold water. Rikku drops his hand in an instant. Gippal straightens his tie, wheels completely around to wipe her lipstick off his face. Cid has not seen.

“Aren’t you gonna say hello to your old man?”

Rikku giggles, slightly crazed. The colour in her cheeks matches Cid’s, but where his is from one too many whiskey sours, hers is the telltale sign of the lust still coursing through her body.

“Gippal was-“ she gulps, thinking frantically, “just showing me where the ladies' room is!”

“Um, sure-“ he looks at her helplessly.

“Allow me, sweetheart.” Cid sweetly offers her his arm to Rikku. She takes it and casts a scandalized glare Gippal’s way.

There is the awkward five minutes where Cid and Gippal wait side by side for Rikku in the toilet. Cid is muttering about being too old for the afterparty. Gippal forgets the night isn’t really over until then. Rikku may as well be the most heavily guarded jewel in Bevelle’s vault with Cid lingering here near them. Cid grumbles- _dying for a cigarette, boy._ Like most new buildings opening in and around Luca the norm is for smoking to be reserved for designated areas- outisde- which comically were now populated by middle aged Al Bhed men and the young, hip Spirans using it as an excuse for fresh air. He almost laughs aloud at the thought of Cid languishing and glowering at a crowd of young social smokers. Gippal slides a small gold box from the inside of his jacket and snaps it open. Within there are the slim strong cigars that are a vogue luxury in the times post-Sin.

“I’ll give you one of these later,” Gippal offers. Cid is clapping him again on the back, declaring that the drinks are on him. Rikku emerges at this moment. Make up touched up. Sexual frustration tucked away. Composed and smiling again. Ready.

“I almost forgot,” Rikku says, pointedly at Gippal, “the afterparty.”

For the second time in as little as two weeks, he follows her into the celebrity snowglobe. Glittering invisible walls up high around her, refracting Rikku into princess now. Perhaps later she will transform into bad girl. There is their discarded champagne bottle, languishing on the bar. She sweeps past and collects it, elbowing him in invitation. He picks up his glass. They seat themselves near the other guests, who are already engrossed in the Blitzball. She sits between him and Cid. She presses her leg conspiratorially- invisible in the dim light- against his as she leans over to place the bottle on the side table to his right. They watch the game, which may as well be running in slow motion. They may as well be submerged in water themselves, because all thought and sensation is focused on one another while they are secretly in contact. They carry out the motions of cheering when the Aurochs score; Rikku bouncing up and high-fiving Yuna in front of her.

Then, they are cut off from life around them; his fingers lingering hotly when he passes her refilled glass; his knee pressing softly against hers; her hand gripping his wrist ecstatically the next time Tidus scores. Each is a scorching reminder of earlier that reactivates their mutual gravitational pull.

At half time, she leaves him to talk to Leblanc and Calli, and he is chilled when her presence slides away from him. He watches her light up, her playful zesty chatter reactivated, and he imagines she has forgotten him. Cid and Brother pull him away to buy him a drink- _congratulations, boy!_ \- and his mind turns to heated discussion of the plays and tactics.

The same squashed, covert physical contact during the second half. An elated hug at the end of the match to confirm the Aurochs’ win.

There is an exclusive backdoor out of the stadium. Rikku squeezes his arm tightly, fingers hooking into the crook of his elbow, then softly releases him apologetically, as the celebrity contingent make their way there. He feels eyes upon them, imagines their scrutiny, but really no one is looking as they filter to their transport. Rikku hurries off to link up with Yuna, weaving her hand in and taking up her arm. Yuna sways with a carelessness he has seldom seen come over her. Paine supports her other side, and within seconds Yuna and Rikku giggle. Paine grins, or as close to the expression as she is likely to get. They disappear into the first hovercar.

Gippal hangs back. Tidus is the last to emerge, hair damp following the game. Gippal offers a cigar to Cid as promised and ignores Rin’s arched eyebrow at this. 

“Tidus?” he offers.

“Nah, bad for your lungs,” he politely declines. Cid snorts.

Conversation turns to the game- the Aurochs had won, obviously- and Cid and Tidus descend into a heated, detailed discussion of tactics. There is praise for the stadium too; Gippal stresses that Tidus had been instrumental in the renovation. Rin’s interest piques, quizzing Tidus about Zanarkand. Specifically, the energy demand of such an illuminated city. Tidus laughs at that- a controversial topic- and promises Rin another time.

The car arrives and the Zanarkandian and Al Bhed cabal go onward in to the night. The same venue as the party less than two weeks ago. Same professional wait staff, not phased as the High Summoner and her guardians filter in through the doors. This time a strawberry bobs in the thankfully more appropriately shaped champagne flutes. 

Down the steps and into the bar. This time, the décor has changed. There are gold drapes around the edge of the room, bunches of black and gold balloons collected together in bouquets and symmetrically placed. There are loose star sequins on the bar tossed over a black velvet runner that travels its length. Yuna and Rikku perch at the far end. Tidus makes a beeline for his fiancé and Gippal trails behind.

Rikku is not facing him; her long braid tumbles over her shoulder as she turns her head. The light catches on the small metal zip holding her dress together. His lips burn as Rikku’s eyes catch his while she pops a strawberry into her mouth. An unruly rivulet of crimson leaks from the side of her mouth; she wipes it away with mindless ease, all the while summoning him over with her eyes.

“Would you like to dance?” Tidus asks, making a show of offering his hand to Yuna. She smiles and jumps into his arms, and they are spinning away in one another’s orbit once again.

Rikku’s glittering smile emerges and she pulls her long braid over her shoulder. The light catches on her collarbone as she pats the vacant barstool.

“Sit.”

There is safety here because there is no hope of remaining unseen. Secret, voyeuristic kissing and the potential promise of later aside, what happened before is known only to the two of them. Rikku exercises this as power over him. He sits.

“Two old fashioneds please.” She intructs their bartender. 

“Fancy.”

He smirks, transfixed on the spectacle of cocktail making before him. She pretends to ignore him, Rikku fishes in her small handbag as the bartender places her drink before her, and she doesn’t look up. Blindly, she brings the drink to her lips. As she sips she throws her gaze back to him. Rikku slips her key into his breast pocket, pats once, smooths her hand over it. The light catches his pocket square- the embellished square of fabric is a cutting from her dress. She shines her smile at him again, as she runs her thumb over the beading there. She hazards a soft kiss to his cheek and he grips the arm that lingers at his chest. Some part of him longs to keep her hand there, to march her out of this hotel, take her home. She wants him to, levelling a sultry glare at him.

_I dare you._

“Keep this safe.”

Stroking again over his pocket because he is helplessly distracted. She turns and walks away from him, into the thick of the party.

* * *

“Dance with me?”

Later on in the night, emboldened and- _yeah, fine_ \- a little tipsy. He takes her hand, steadies her. She is carrying herself as Rikku, frosted with crystal, but still _Cid’s little girl_. Killer Coeurl allure softer now with her usual infectious smile and the giggles that bubble between them.

“You just wanna show off.” She says as he spins her dramatically.

“Um,” he says, “People need to know we were two-times under-ten ballroom champions.”

“Yeah, at Home,” she protests, “out of three couples.”

“Still,” he pulls her into loose hold, “it’s like riding a bike.”

Self awareness sparks gradual sobriety. He pulls her closer, and there is the scent of his cologne, of him, a sudden red hot flash of the feel of his lips against hers. The abscence of the scent of ash; he hasn’t been smoking tonight.

“Relax,” he murmurs, “No one important is watching.”

The music slows, the lights dip, darker, blue-purple. He drops their hold even further. Her left hand is loose in his. His right hand a rudder, nestling in the small of her back, tracing the line of the zip. A blossoming trail of fire as his fingertips follow the thread. Her other hand has a light, tentative grip on his right shoulder. His jacket is long gone, somewhere on the outskirts of the room. Uncouth, loose tie, the top two buttons of his shirt undone. A tease of tanned skin. That kiss of chest hair poking up. That roguish tilt of his lips into the omnipresent smirk, that she knows she could vanquish with a fierce enough kiss. The slant of his cheekbone and pull of his green eyes on her. It is almost midnight, and his hair is soft in the humidity of the party, slight loose waves forming. To the outsider looking in- just another of the many couples swaying solemnly to the romantic noise of the band. No one cares that she settles her chin there on his shoulder and presses a quick kiss where the band of his eye patch meets his temple.

“Let’s get out of here,” he murmurs with some authority. She nods into him. Reluctantly disengaging, but there is a sudden change of plan. He pulls her back in to dance because of how her eyes alight when the next dance tune jumps to life around them. They continue this way, dancing- _an hour?_ \- building a sheen of sweat, a heave to their breathing from the exertion.

Racing out in to the cold air of the smoking area, they freewheel into Leblanc and Yuna. Rikku scolds her about his pocket square, as though there was some sordid conspiracy around it. Leblanc feigns innocence, and Yuna, far drunker than anyone expects of her, is giggling with her. For once Rikku is the one furiously fighting off the teasing. His favourite new game, stretching his arm round her, setting off the stroppy, proud anger of what this implies. He palms her off to Lulu and makes his way around the raucous, rowdy bunch- Tidus, Wakka, Paine- the cool people who aren’t in bed yet. They spend their deceptive last hour of the night in other people's company, nothing more to drink.

“Gippal.”

She catches him about to light a cigarette at 2am. He pockets it instead. She tugs once lightly at his tie. A command he follows. They slink through the crowd inside together, sizzling with the usual childish back and forth- the ritualistic roll of her eyes, his nonsensical nicknames. A delicious pantomime as he collects his jacket and she finds her purse. They somehow escape together, hands off of each other, until the partition in the hovercar is up and she is all over him again on the short ride home.

* * *

In the moonlight, the spotlight, of her room, he inches the zip of her dress down, watches it slide from her body. He does not know how he survived those last three hours. Her braid bounces over her shoulder, drawing his gaze down the crisp line of her back, which he softly traces until, finally, he hooks his fingers into the waistband of her lingerie. She turns then and the naked skin of her breasts is against his chest. She tilts her head. He kisses her neck. She pulls his shirt away; and, then suddenly he’s lifting her and she hooks herself around his waist. This time when his hand caresses her breast, his thumb traces over her nipple. She breaks their kiss to swear breathlessly at him.

“Language,” he scolds. He throws her on to her bed.

He strips himself, discards his clothes, his last sliver of caution, next to her dress. He collides with her on the bed. Her hands threading through his hair; her lips are everywhere on his neck. She kisses and licks, arches her back, herself, into his touch. Hot, fervent urgency as her nails rake over him. He presses against her and she pushes back, the warmth of her arousal insistent. Gippal tears his mouth away from hers, exhales sharply into the curve of her neck, murmurs incoherently. Rikku’s eyes are hooded, lustful broken sentences emerging from her lips in their native tongue. He kisses her heavily then and her lips part, and Rikku moves, trying to gain as much contact with him as possible.

He breaks away again, softly bites then teases the new sore spot above her collarbone with his tongue. A trail of light kisses between her breasts; a pause, torturing her nipple with his tongue, stifling his own moan as Rikku curses again. He skates the flat of his palm over her other breast, savouring Rikku breaking to pieces beneath him.

“Don’t-” she breathes; his dick twitches; her words spill out in either language, “stop.”

Briefly obliging, yet he does stop again at her navel, and her fingers find purchase in his hair. He curls his fingers into the waistband of the delicate lace covering her. A hand trails down her thigh, and then back to bracket her sex. He presses lightly over her, that lace undeniably wet.

Pauses. Exhales. She softly tightens her grip with a whimper. 

She swears or pleads, maybe both, as he exposes her. Presses his lips to the tanned skin above her knee, and- so slowly, she fumes- forges his own broken path of kisses, pausing to worship at the altar- the join where thigh meets pelvis. She offers herself to him with a thirsty tilt of her hips.

Ferocious waves of pleasure crash erratically over her as his tongue caresses her clit. Again and again crashing over her- a low thrum building up a delicious undercurrent. It pulls her under and she is stuck there. Has it been an instant or an age? Rhythmic, repetitive, rolling his tongue against her, he coaxes her and holds her on the edge, slides two fingers inside and presses somewhere up and so disgustingly, secretly hers. The pressure breaks and sends a tsunami of pleasure to engulf the fragile shore. White circles of light rapidly stretch, expand, compress themselves again and again; fireworks on a quick, slow, rewind, fast forward loop burned on to the back of her eyelids.

The noise she makes on the choppy build and break of her orgasm, she hasn’t heard. Gippal anchors her to the bed while he rubs, soft, lazy, the receding aftershocks of her orgasm pulsating against his fingertips. She guides his head back up to her then, devours his lips, and yet instantly famished by the loss of his heat there. His very absence reawakening the agonizing ache between her legs. She hooks her legs around him, pulls him flush to her. So hard, brazen against her. Gippal tears his mouth away, swears into her neck, voice deep and rumbling primitively down her spine.

“Rikku,” he summons her back into the room. She slightly chills her passion, looks him in the eye one long second, “are you su-”

That way he has of reducing her to the teenage girl nursing a crush; he starts to draw up the barrier that they’d never crossed back then. She releases the safety for him, silencing him with a deep, blazing kiss. An invitation to relinquish his last vestige of self-control. And in his momentary hesitation she guides him on to his back. Straddles him, draws him to sit up. Reverentially, he places a hand on the small of her back while the other tentatively grips her hip.

She his princess; he her loyal servant.

Poised, she breathes consent- _sure_ \- on to his lips. He is inside her then in one smooth sensual movement. A soft gasp escapes one of them. So close, full, paralysed pleasurably. Her hands touch each side of his face, tracing the line of his eye patch, ghosting over his eyelashes. Such trust pours from her to him and he takes this as his cue. He steadies his breathing to match hers, kisses the side of her face, lightly bites then licks then blows lightly over her earlobe. Then she catches again like a match and moves her hips, rides him with building pace as he pulls her closer, tighter, further on to him. That singular white focus is drawing over him, and the volume of their breathing and grunting and pleading grows monstrous.

Desperately he slows her, steadies her, somehow flips them, hooks one of her legs over his shoulder. Briefly withdrawing to subvert his imminent orgasm, he thrusts back into her, someplace deeper. A place that causes Rikku to release a noise so primal that desire overtakes him. He gives in and fucks her. Sensational, breathy sounds growing loud in her small room.

_Please. Yes._

_Gippal._

Again and again her pleading. Breathlessly begging.

_Fuck me. Harder. Please._

The second crest of her pleasure pinches tight around his cock. His thrusts jutter out of any control, as she pulls him under into orgasm with her.

Warmth flows out of him. Muscles softening as he falls down to envelope her. Slick, flush to one another with sweat. His pounding pulse plateaus with his fading throbs of orgasm. Rikku, still breathless, moans, muffled in the cooling sheen of sweat at his hairline. She pokes him hard between the ribs.

“You’re heavy, you know!”

He laughs then into her collarbone, finds it within himself to relax more deeply, feigns sleep as she wriggles impatiently beneath him. Eventually Gippal rolls away, sinking into the cloud of her bed. She makes to get up, but he snaps from his postcoital stupor to tuck her alongside him. 

“Not yet,” he murmurs.

In less than five minutes, the cloud of humidity falls away and the air conditioning is icy. Rikku slinks away ungracefully to her bathroom. The rush of the tap and clinical click of the light. She pads back in and is rudely trying to pull the covers from beneath him. He groans and lets her readjust the pair of them, burrowing under her blankets and throws. He untangles the accidental layers of fabric that form between them, pulls her warm body flush to his.

“Cold,” he mutters. Rikku giggles and is grinding herself backwards into his groin. Arousal twitches dimly again as their hips align.

“You’re insatiable,” he murmurs to the back of her neck.

Rikku sighs, yawns, gives up. Somnolent, she settles herself, arranging and pulling her pillows just so.

“Goodnight, you.” She mutters, voice lost to the pillow. Gippal’s slow, soft breathing betrays his slumber.

* * *

Gippal is no stranger to waking up after a poorly planned night of passion; he’s had his fair share of one night stands. He last remembers, before she had turned the lights off, his arm draped over her, thumb nestling in the soft join between her breast and abdomen. The air conditioning is off now, and his hand caresses- is knotted in- the layers of blankets she insists on. Before his eyes open, he groans at how hot he is. He jostles free, and the air that hits his naked skin just presses closer. She’s placed her bathrobe across the end of the bed. She is not there. Her gown from yesterday has been hung up next to his jacket. His belt and his trousers remain discarded unceremoniously beneath them. His shirt is gone so bathrobe it is. The scent of frying bacon lures him towards the living room.

Sneakthief. Rikku wears last night’s shirt, unruly hair released from the constraints of her braid. She hasn’t heard him. He hears her yawn, watches her stretch. There is large jug of black coffee on the breakfast bar; two small glasses of orange juice. Maybe she can hear him but doesn’t turn. He places his hands either side of her on the kitchen counter.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” she feels the heat of him, presses her head back against his shoulder. She places her coffee cup down on the counter. He pushes closer, trails his hand up the outside of her thigh. Fresh panties, his dirty shirt. His hand trails up, strokes the side of her naked breast, lightly touches her nipple there. She exhales, her hand snakes behind her head, pulls him in to kiss below her ear.

“Morning, princess,” he purrs. He pushes away from the counter. She takes the bait. She spins round to face him and pulls him back with the tie of the bathrobe and kisses him despite mutual morning breath. She is climbing him, arms flung round his neck, legs boldly round his waist. He has her in his grip then, his hands firm on her thighs. 

“What about breakfast?” he asks.

“Not yet,” She speaks it into his mouth and then laughs at the dejected look on his face. He places her like a present on the counter. She is untying his robe and he exposes her breasts from beneath his shirt. The light pink cotton panties, and blue elasticated waistband fascinates him. Clean cotton candy wrapper. Part of him wants to taste her, but Rikku has different designs for him. She inserts two fingers into his mouth until satisfactorily wet. A string of spit momentarily stretches between them. She slides her fingers below the wrapper and touches herself. She looks at him so calmly, such a coolly levelled invitation, the flush of heat that spikes through him as his dick hardens intoxicates him.

He pulls her thong down- pulls her onto him and she’s already so delectably wet that he’s inside of her easily as she crashes her lips into his, touching herself all the while. The fingers of her other hand vice-like in his hair. She is aggressive, bruising smash of her lips against his, grinding against him. By some miracle he is still standing.

“Wait a sec,” he murmurs and nips at her neck, hands steadying her hips.

“I’ve been waiting for you to wake up for an hour.” She growls with such unabashed lust that he almost loses control right there. Deep breath, and then he maneuvers them clumsily on to the cold hard floor.

“Fine,” he snaps. Feels the sensational shudder that runs through her when he harshly pushes her hands above her, pins her to the ground.

“Fuck me.”

Where last night she begged, now she is commanding him. Her hair is a ridiculous fan on the floor. Her back arches. She looks so fucking pissed at him for making her wait.

It’s a chilly Al Bhed hiss the second time, as she springs up, pulls him violently towards her. Queen Coeurl coiled and about to pounce.

“Vilg sa.”

He loses control then and is pumping into her. Quick. Filthy. Clumsy. Feels her tightening so soon after he starts, because she’s been touching herself all morning. He follows soon after so dizzyingly intense that his thrusts overshoot in the last throes of orgasm and his cum spurts over her. She slides her fingers through the mess, playing with her breast until she finishes riding her own orgasm.

He is lying on his back, panting with exertion, hands over his face. He doesn’t want to look at her because this is Rikku, his childhood best friend, and because now all he can see is her face twisting in pleasure. It’s so startlingly similar to the way he’d imagined her when he’d touched himself back then. There is a sickening sense that this line they’ve crossed is going to destroy them. But then Rikku sits up and stretches in the brilliant sunlight and grins at him with such mischief its contagious.

“Don’t overthink it.”

She pats him lightly on the chest. The smell of overcooked bacon draws her back to the stove and she shouts over her shoulder at him to pour more coffee. 

They sit. Burnt bacon, cool coffee. 

“Bacon’s a bit overcooked,” he says to break the silence.

She swivels and kicks his barstool lightly.

“Entirely your fault” she says sweetly, a smile to match.

He is grinning then too, and conversation slides back to the usual chatter. Rikku bustles around him as they finish breakfast, a flurry of domesticated activity to clean up. She bags the first shower. When she pads quietly back into the room, Gippal is fast asleep on the couch, one of her books open on his chest. She pries it away from him and shakes him awake.

“Shower’s free!”

He groans sleepily. Goes through the motions of showering. When he emerges he is still incredibly damp, one of Rikku’s ridiculous small towels tied around his waist. There is a half packed suitcase on her bed. Rikku checks her reflection in the mirror, admiring herself in a pink bikini, hair still covered with a towel.

“Going somewhere?”

“Besaid with Yunie for a bit.”

He leans back on the bed, thankful that the air conditioning has been switched back on as she spins in her bikini. 

“Vacation?”

“Mmhmm,” she asks, still studying her own reflection, then turning to him, hand scrunching her curtain of wet hair, “have you been to the spa there?”

He shakes his head. There’s a spa complex- hotels, shops, private beaches, along Besaid’s shoreline. Originally the island's council idea to absorb the growing tourism and buffer the numbers streaming constantly through the town. Tourists could sign up for limited, small group tours of the ruins, village and temple.

“The island gifted us with lifetime passes,” she enthuses, “Cool, huh?”

He nods. She slips back into her soft robe, releasing herself from the bikini which falls out from under the bathrobe. Sudden modesty. She sinks on to the bed next to him, and turns to him, scowling.

“Sarra told me that you crash at your office?”

“Um, yeah,” he mutters. The truth is simply that he hasn’t had time to look for a place, initially back and forwards between Luca and Djose. The occasional hotels, and increasingly, closer to the opening, he had started to crash on the couch in his office. The bathroom; it had been fairly quick for the workers to rig a shower in there, then a small kitchenette, and the couch that converts to a bed. Time passes; he’ll be returning to Djose soon enough. He tells her as such.

“Well,” she says, slightly preoccupied with her nails, “you can crash here while I’m gone.”

It’s a sweet offer.

“It’s fine, honestly.”

“I mean it.”

“Look-“

“You look,” she prods him. “I’ve had a lot of fun these last two weeks, so thank you?” 

He stares at her.

“Fine. You can be my housesitter,”

“Will you shut up if I agree?”

“For a little while,” she promises, “I’m still gonna lecture you about being homeless though!”

He shoots a warning glare her way. She puts her hands up in surrender.

“How will I ever thank you?” he mocks, grabs her arm as she stands up. There is dark look on her face, and she is sinking on to his lap. Kissing him, the loop of arousal and stopping and going and fucking beginning again for a couple of hours.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was just a one time thing. Right?

Two weeks later he meets her from the ship from Besaid- after all, he has her key. She greets him with a warm kiss on his cheek, half a hug, as she drags her suitcase down the ramp behind her. She is more tan than ever, freckles like stardust, red lipstick on anyhow, small white dress, exposed shoulders. Her hair in a casual low bun to accommodate her floppy sun hat, the sides of the brim drooping to frame large black sunglasses, like an intoxicated butterfly. He relieves her of her suitcase. He looks casual, white linen shirt, his own large glasses a strangely effective disguise on the packed docks, even though they are ridiculous over his eye patch. The dying dusky sun is sinking languidly below the horizon.

“Can I buy a drink?” she asks, “you know, for housesitting.”

“I know just the place.”

Speakeasy. The door is painted black, accessible via a small dingy back alleyway. From the front, the basement bar is invisible, nestled between an expensive boutique to its left and the betting shop to its right, both empty at this late hour. The door back here in the small alleyway looks like the unused entrance to a deserted terraced town house. Almost imperceptible to the casual observer is the smaller shutter used to appraise the potential new customer.

“Creepy.” Rikku mutters.

"Just wait."

Gippal knocks and there is at least a three minute wait until the shutter slides open- one large Hypello eye peruses them. The assessor grants them entry, and they shuffle into the small entryway, Rikku sliding under the arm Gippal uses to keep the door open. They descend down dusty carpeted stairs. There is a humbly expensive touch to the interior décor here. Deep red drapes pepper the wallpapered walls. In one corner, a mahogany platform with a grand piano and standalone microphone forms the focus of the room. Ready for the weekly night of live music, sultry songstresses and wounded roguish guitarists are the usual act. Rounded tables and velvet cushioned chairs dot the space, mismatched. Fat, oozing temple-grade candles illuminate the space, tendrils of wax pooling onto the tables. The opposite side of the room houses the bar, which extends the length of the wall. A dizzying array of bottles- rum, gin, whiskey- some older than the pair of them combined- clutter the aged shelves. There is no bar menu: at first this had intimidated Gippal. The proprietor is an Hypello named Barkeep. Only tonight Gippal discovers, courtesy of Rikku, that Barkeep was the Celsius’ bartender until his wife had become pregnant. Weeks of regular evenings spent tucked away here working over sheets of paper had turned into weekly unwind sessions. Barkeep’s speciality is fixing a drink from the pitch of your voice; he could tell your very mood from how you respond to the his greeting. This is where he and Tidus had hashed out the finer details of the stadium, and in the lead up to Blitz season, became way to familiar with Barkeep’s taste in whiskey.

Underground, oppressively dark, a hidden underbelly answering to the glamour the city wears, this is the most private place to have fun in Spira. Dusty, not dirty, comfortable, not creepy. It is undiscovered, especially by the paparazzi. A couple of widely reported minor scandals, or rather, the spin the media places on them had quickly alerted him to exercise caution while he lives in Luca. He values privacy. Leblanc and Nooj’s history for example, and especially the entire handling of Tidus and Yuna’s relationship in the public eye do not sit well with him.

Lowkey friendship with Tidus aside, this naturally is where he brings the various women he dates. Barkeep maintains casual amnesia about this, as there is a different girl every week. Gippal himself is slightly amnesic, because now Rikku is here, and it feels wrong somehow. But he promised to bring her here- next time- what seems like an age ago. There is a sparkle of green eye contact between them when she draws her sunglasses down, slotting them onto the neckline of her dress. Something about her is wary suddenly, adjusting to the dark.

“You know, you’re acting so serious- are you about to tell me you’re pregnant?” she purrs, and he is quite aware of her proximity.

This floors him. Neither of them dare mention in on the pleasant walk to the bar. Secretly, he wishes she hadn't. Nervous laughter. Some deluded part of him prays that isn't what she is getting at. Gippal grips her arms and steers her backwards on to the bar stool. A rare heirloom amongst the fine whiskey, the sticky bartop.

“What are you drinking?” he asks weakly.

“Surprise me.”

“Mish Rikku?” Barkeep sidles up to them. Gippal relaxes, as Rikku is pleasantly titillated by his presence. Barkeep is smart, already mixing their drinks. Their friendly catch up grants Gippal a reprieve, and he watches as she takes the first sip, the softening of her brows- her pleasure- that whiskey can be mixed so well. Condensation slides down the side of her glass, icy cold. She stares back at him alertly- Barkeep walks away, other lone quiet patrons hailing him- and smiles.

“Rikku,” he starts. Her smile drops at the serious look on his face, “about, uh, last time I saw- we saw each other,”

His words are dying with their own formality. She frowns at him.

“What about it?” she averts her eyes, slow, sullen stirs of the whiskey sour with her straw.

“I know that I have- you think I have- this reputation,” he almost bottles it at her small smirk, “I don’t want you to think it was just-”

She looks straight at him then. He feels fourteen. Falters.

“A quick fuck?” she provides.

“That.” He stops.

Rikku’s the most mature she’s over looked, a singular brow quirks upwards. She places her glass on the bar with a shrill clang. Crosses her arms.

“Look,” he continues, “I have a lot of respect for you-“

“Do you not normally have _a lot of respect_ for your sexual conquests?”

“Just let me finish,” he practically growls at her, “I’m trying to be serious here.”

“Fine,” she says stiffly, “Continue.”

“I don’t want to fuck up our friendship.”

She taps her foot against the bar for what is perhaps the longest minute. A cool calculated pause and he can almost hear the cogs of her mind.

Exasperatedly, “Me either.”

Silence again. She leans over.

“But I’m sure we’ll be fine,” she whispers, “it doesn’t have to mean anything.”

And of all the ways this conversation has gone in his mind, he hasn’t planned for that.

“We’re still friends, aren’t we?” she shrugs, “and we had sex this one time.”

"More than one time." he interrupts softly. She rolls her eyes at him.

Rikku takes her ridiculous hat off, as though her mind is finally catching up that she is inside. He’s silent as she rearranges her hair, pulls her fingers through it. He takes a freezing sip, as she lightly kicks at his chair.

“Way I see it,” she continues, in the abscence of his input. “We trust each other. We’re friends. We had sex. It was fun. It might happen again. It might not.”

“Okay,” he says slowly.

“Don’t overthink it.” She says coolly, a loud gurgle emitting through her straw as she finishes her drink, then a smile.

“Barkeep!?” he calls. _Fuck it_ , he thinks, and downs his drink.

Whether its her insistence that what happened isn’t allowed to make things complicated, or the next three cocktails kicking in, the dust settles. They are back to the usual pattern. _Cid’s girl_ this, _princess_ that. She’s regaling him with tales of Vidina’s toddler antics; Wakka failing miserably to teach him the basics of blitzball but he’d been far more interested in splashing by the shore. Long walks with Yuna and Lulu. Long days in the spa; mud baths and massages. The hours pass with easy conversation, permission again to tease her relentlessly.

The platonic back and forth of banter. The friendly touches, soft punches when he crosses the line of humour. How easy she is to wind up again, They catch themselves flirting and wind it back countless times. Again though add three more hours of drinks and the lines helplessly blur; some where inbetween friendly and flirtatious, platonic and passionate.

If he is really honest, he knows as soon as she kisses his cheek as she steps off the boat that they’d end up in her bed again. She knows as soon as he chides her, growls at her to let him finish, that she plans to kiss him. Later when his guard is down. She has to have the final say on the matter.

She confirms the pure inevitability of it, as he’s walking her back home. They stop at her door and she places her hat on his head, pulls the wings of it in to her, clumsily, and therefore him too for a goodnight kiss. The sweet relief as he melts into her, pushes her up on her door. Fumbling with her key which he still has possession of to let them through the door. Strawberry daiquiri, her last drink of the night, is how she tastes in this moment, and he of cigarette ash.

Stumbling through the threshold together, the blasting chill of the air conditioning barely registers on their skin. All they are aware of is the heat of one another. This time they are both far drunker, sloppier, clumsier. Gippal trips trying to climb out of his trousers. They are giggling, rolling on her couch, precarious attempts at athletic positions. Giving up and making out. For an hour all they want is this constant contact.

Another drunken hour of them both smoking on her balcony. She’s stolen his large white t shirt, fished tiny blue pyjama shorts out of her room. Knee high socks accidentally in the dark but she rocks them. He wears Rikku’s bathrobe, at this point, practically his. She’s brought some of her many blankets out with her. They start to smoke the rest of his pack. One sun lounger each, facing one another, talking shit. The creeping postcoital sobriety fading as they work through a bottle of red wine. They reach that precious level of post-seen-each-other-naked honesty.

“I’m so jealous that the magazines never catch you and your many conquests on camera,” she whines.

“I’m just discreet.”

“Wait a minute,” she jolts up, scowling, “Do you take all your dates to that bar!” 

“Um, most of them,” he laughs at her outrage.

“Way to make a girl feel special,” she groans.

“You should,” he mutters, “don’t normally… shop at the same store twice… if you get my meaning.”

“Oh shiva, ew! You really haven’t changed!”

“Like I say,” carelessly, “we’re all a little too young for the mushy shit.”

“The sex?” she asks, innocently.

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“I blame Rin,” she offers. Rin is his maternal uncle. He had spent half of his childhood travelling back and forwards between Luca and Home with Rin, after his mother had died. Every Blitz season back at Home, and off season back to Luca to live with his father. Rin, his escort back and forth, who never settles down himself, and is now pushing forty.

Then five minutes later, quietly, “no wonder you’re so good at..” And doesn’t finish her sentence, blushes instead.

“What about you and your string of high profile affairs? What was his name? Maric?” he asks. He is not as oblivious as he lets on to Rikku’s escapades. Most recently, Maroda, ex Youth League commander. In fact the shortest of her relationships to play out publicly. Barely three months- snapped together leaving a night club to high profile split. She’s quiet for a long moment after correcting him. Maroda.

“It just puts so much more pressure on things, you know. Like you’re literally on your second date and they’re predicting when you’re gonna be married, you know?”

“So, that’s it? He didn’t like the cameras?” He presses.

“Well, fine, I just wasn’t really feeling it anymore. We went on a few dates, and it just fizzled out.”

“Happens.” He stubs his cigarette out on the makeshift ashtray she’s made out of a tumbler with a small layer of water.

“I just,” she starts, sips at the red wine, “gotta be more careful, keep it all private, you know?”

He nods at her, then. 

“You haven’t had _any_ girlfriends then? This whole time.”

“No.”

“How come?”

“I barely have time to get all my work done as it is,” he says, pathetically. She doesn’t believe him but doesn’t press it.

“You work too hard.” She yawns, and is starting to nod off, curling into herself under the blanket. He sighs, wakes her up after another cigarette, trying to coax her to bed. 

“Carry,” she mumbles sleepily.

So he carries her to bed, tucking her under the covers because the air is on too high for her, as always. He collapses onto her sofa, asleep as soon as he has arranged himself into drunken comfort.

The next day is Rikku in yoga pants, sluggishly patrolling her houseplants, pushing her finger into the soil, watering less than half of them. Coffee while they both bitch about how awful they feel. His solitary long hot shower. Rikku, recovered, on her large balcony, body inverted, triangular to her yoga mat. Then sphinx life, heart centre to the sky. More coffee. His nap on her sundeck, lazy streetcat, despite it.

“How,” he croaks when she wakes him at midday- sweaty because she’s been running- the clunk of a heavy glass of water on the side table, “are you so functional?”

“Well the trick is,” she teases, “Just decide to not be hungover.”

“Funny.” He throws the towel around his shoulders at her. 

He dresses as she showers, cracking in to the suitcase of his stuff that he’d packed, ready for him to go as soon as he dropped her off at her door. At least, that was his intention yesterday. Best laid plans, and all that. He suspects her plans were more securely laid.

“I meant it, you know,” Rikku, behind him, as he’s preparing to leave, sweeping the living room for any of his stray belongings.

“What?”

“We better still be friends,” she says shyly, “I like hanging out, you know?”

“Don’t overthink it, princess,” he pulls her in to a hug, kisses her affectionately on her forehead.

* * *

“Work is crazy busy.”

The quality of the Commsphere display, the personal one installed in her kitchen, perched on the breakfast bar, to facilitate her morning catch ups, is crystal. She can see the steam curling skywards from his coffee, the lines on his face where he slept funny.

“Bevelle are just suddenly all up in our business. New stadium, new intercoms, and I’m trying to manage that from here, because the place still gives me the creeps.”

“Aw, I'm sure Baralai would _love_ to have you there. I can see the headlines now- _Spira’s two most eligible bachelors out on the town_ -”

“I swear that man is shackled to his desk. And moving everything over from Djose is requiring all sorts of babysitting input from me—” 

She smirks as his rant continues. This feels familiar, as irritating and endless as the sand they could never wash off their bodies on Bikanel, but like home, somehow. He pauses to take a big glug of coffee.

“I’m being rude,” he says, “what’s up with you?”

“Leblanc is stressing about next season, which is about one thousands times more dramatic than it sounds,” she starts, “Endless fittings, make up and hair tests. It’s so draining. But I love it.”

They both laugh. He starts flirting with her then, shamelessly trying to score a free lunch. She’s too busy today. Tantalises him- next time- and it sits there. Loaded. 

“I’m supposed to be off next Wednesday?” She states.

“That’s nice.” He says, tone bland, as though now he’s disinterested.

She leaves it there, pretending she’s late for a call to Yuna.

* * *

Rikku adopts a kitten. She has had the idea since Besaid where the russet coloured felines- permanent fixtures at the Crusader’s Lodge- had taken a liking to her. She is not a cat person, but there is a sad silence to her apartment, these last two weeks. She catches herself talking to her houseplants way too often. She carries the kitten home, her usual disguise of large glasses, hat, and one of last season’s summer dresses, hair braided into a low chignon, invisible under her droopy sunhat. She digs around in her purse for her key with one hand, the other gripping the carrier.

She collides with someone as she reaches her door, making the familiar steps on blind autopilot.

“Watch it!” Gippal steadies her with one hand, the other gripping his cigarette.

“Shit,” she looks up from beneath her hat, startled. He’s standing there in his work shirt, eternally loosened tie, “um…”

“It’s your day off, right?”

“Sure.”

“Wanna order in? Hang out?” he asks, casually, like it doesn’t really matter, like he just happens to have passed by, “unless you’re busy?”

Rikku is at a loss.

“I’m not.”

“What’s that?”

He notices, narrows his eye. She freezes as a quiet mewl emits from the carrier. _Well, fuck_. Counts to three. 

“Is that a cat?!”

“Maybe,” she ventures, but it’s a lost cause. Where Rikku is unsure about cats, Gippal is fanatic. He is straight down on his knees, peering into the cage. This is one of the many ridiculous things about him- this blind spot for kittens.

“It’s gorgeous,” he mutters, poking his finger through the gaps in the grate, genuinely, contagiously smiling.

“Get up, you’ll get all dusty.” she says, and then unlocks her door, gesturing him in behind her.

The next hour, all thought of food is gone from Gippal’s mind. He watches intently, leaning forward. Rikku perches on her knees and there is a small click as she releases the latch. A short-haired white kitten, baby blue eyes, tentatively creeps out. It stumbles slightly, a disgruntled meow. Slowly she sniffs around Rikku’s knees then clambers up. Rikku picks the tiny creature up tenderly, levels their gaze.

“So cute,” she murmurs, “What should I call her?”

He shrugs. She beckons him over with a tilt of her head. They are both cross legged then, small kitten darting between them skittishly, and learning their scent. 

“Well this is good,” she says, “that she likes you. I might promote you to catsitter.”

“Anytime,” he says. The kitten playfully nips at his hand, and he coos something nonsensical back.

“So what do you want for food?” she asks, making to get up from the floor.

“No,” he stops her with a quick kiss on her cheek and a grin, “my treat. You two get to know each other.”

He yells for her order a few minutes later, after activating her Commsphere. As they wait, he pours a glass of red wine for them both. He sips at his, and watches her play with the kitten. Five years ago, this would be some junked up machina she’d be tinkering with instead. Rikku is showing her new charge the litter tray, then the small bed she has bought, then stands to leave her animal child to explore. She pads silently behind Rikku as she flops on to her sofa.

“She loves you already.”

He walks over with her wine glass, which she gratefully accepts, and he adopts the mirror of her slouch on the opposite arm of the couch.

“Lana.” Rikku states.

“Cute name.”

“We’ll see.”

Lana starts the slow ascent up Gippal’s trouser leg, tiny needle like claws biting in to him.

“She’s about as annoying as you already,” he huffs, extricating Lana’s claws from his flesh, then presses his nose lightly against her, “can’t stay mad at her for long though.”

“You’re so weird.” Rikku says softly. 

The food arrives. Gippal dumps Lana on to her lap then. He serves up quickly. Rikku settles Lana on to her small bed. They tuck in to noodles, spring rolls, some delicious sweet and sour beef dish.

“Haven’t seen you in the magazines this week?” Gippal asks. She swallows her bite of food.

“Working on a few things. Always a bit slow.” She swallows her food, “Blitz season.”

“No parties?”

She shakes her head, tossing the last of her wine back.

“You know Brother and Buddy’s thing is this weekend, right?”

He nods and starts making excuses. She interrupts him-

“Okay, but you can’t make me go to that alone! You know how crazy the pair of them get. Don’t wanna be their third wheel all night.”

“Can’t you drag Calli along, or, I don’t know, Leblanc?”

“Leblanc?! At a rave!” she protests, “and Calli is way too young!”

“Is a rave really your scene?” he asks, “you’re all designer dresses and shiny hair now.”

“Shiny hair?"

He shrugs at her.

"For old time’s sake?” she pleads, wide eyed, slight pout forming, “Please?”

“Fine.”

“Yay!” she says, “You need to blow off some steam, you know. You work too hard.”

They catch up then. Rikku’s month ahead is packed with shoots and interviews across the city, in between days of fiend hunting on Mi’hen, combat skills a little rusty from her luxury life in Luca. Gippal has to go back to Djose in a month, start wrapping up there. With the Luca headquarters almost finished, and plans for a small Bevelle office being laid, they were giving the temple up to New Yevon. All temples were to be maintained as significant pieces of history, a sentimental excuse to drum up tourist revenue.

“They’re leaving Zanarkand alone though,” he reassures her, catching the troubled frown on her face, “That was not a fun meeting. Yuna is fierce.”

“Good.”

“You never talk about it.” he says.

“Huh?”

“The pilgrimage, killing Sin, assassinating Maesters. You got busy.”

“I guess,” she offers, “I’m sure everyone’s bored of it all by now.”

“I’m just dying to know how you made it through the thunder plains.” 

“They almost left me there.” she whines, and this does get her talking. He learns that Auron was such a meanie; he counters that he’s surprised he didn’t kill her within an hour of meeting her. 

“He is a softie deep down. Then Lulu taught me lightning magic,” she continues, and then is waxing lyrical about how calm and collected Lulu is. She is still her role model; the sassy, maternal, fierce black mage, “She’s just always so poised you know. Like nothing shocks her.”

“I don’t know,” he says, “You seem to do a pretty good job of looking all sultry and serious when the cameras get you.”

“Sultry!?” she pushes him lightly away from her on the sofa, “Ew, Gippal!”

“Bit late for ew, don’t ya think?” he quips. He mimes something crude with one of the spring rolls. She places her carton of food down and shrieks at him. She wrestles it out of his hands. Playing dirty, she tickles him, swipes it from midair when he drops it.

“Don’t molest the food!” she cries.

He chases her then, softly tackles her to the ground. Fair game, he pinches her side sharply which makes her jump away from his hands. He reclaims the prize.

“You are so annoying!” and she is straddling him, and manages to wrest it from his grip. She throws it across the room and regrets it as Lana pads after it instantly.

Gippal gives up, resting his hands on her thighs. Their eyes meet and she blushes as rapid awareness of the heat where they are touching dawns on her. Both more embarrassed with less alcohol in their system. Gippal tries to sit up and Rikku pitches her weight forward to roll away from him. His forehead collides her chin.

“Owie!” she moans. He huffs in pain and rolls them over, climbs down to settles his head heavily on her stomach. He collapses there with her as his pillow.

“Still as clumsy as ever,” he prods her in the side.

“Get off! You’re heavy,”

“Comfy here, thanks.”

She exhales, resigned. Her fingers lace briefly into his hair; his curl into the fabric of her dress.

“What are we doing?” the heat of her touch recedes as she slides her hand away.

“Nothing,” he murmurs innocently into her stomach, “your idea, remember.”

“Yeah, but,” she pauses, “I just thought it would be like one time, you know. Like I get it. We were drunk and flirting and I was feeling myself but…”

“Mmhmm,” he tosses the noise out, pretending he isn’t listening too closely.

“It keeps happening.”

"Bit dramatic." he yawns, "It's happened, what, twice."

"You know what I mean."

“What can I say? I’m too irresistible for my own good,” he counters.

“Gippal, honestly,” then in Al Bhed a few seconds later, “seriously get off my bladder.”

“Sexy,” but he relents, and is up on all fours, looking down at her, and she tries to squirm away from his gaze, “I haven’t got a fucking clue what we’re doing, princ-”

“Don’t,” she growls, smushing her finger on to his lips to silence him.

“Rikku,” he drawls then, and pulls them both, dizzyingly, up to sit and face each other, “I didn’t come over to just... uh… we can just chill, like we used to-”

“Are Brother and Buddy due to turn up any minute?” she asks, fake excitement.

“Funny,” He says, “no, we don’t need to define this, if it’s going to make it-”

He is gesturing between them.

“Complicated?” she offers, sounding the world slowly.

“Wouldn’t want you getting any bad publicity, now.”

She scoffs, eyes to the ceiling. 

“We just have to be careful not to be seen,” she agrees, the faintest flitter of flirtation.

“Our little secret?” he suggests, shuffling closer, “if that’s how you like it?”

“That’s easier,” she says, “because the paparazzi will just ruin it.”

“Easier,” he breathes against her lips, and a thrill runs down her spine as he confesses, “You know we could have hung out like this when we were fifteen, if you’d just asked.”

“Such a player,” is the last thing she says before climbing on top of him. She kisses him with all the teenage infatuation she can muster in that moment, imagines they’re making out on the hood of one of the many jerry-rigged hovers he’d hijacked over the years. She giggles when they break for air.

“What’s so funny?” he is tickling her then, until she is a breathless, shrieking mess.

“Stop, stop!” The earlier unmet need to urinate pulling her back from silly into sober. She excuses herself. Has to splash her face and neck with cold water. Composure, now.

She melts when she walks back in. Gippal settled on her couch with Lana purring aggressively on his lap.

“I’m stuck.”

“Oh dear,” she mutters, “I’ve been a bad owner already, haven’t I?”

Lana is forgiving, stretching and pressing her precious head into her outstretched hand.

“We had a cat in Luca,” she stops stroking to look up, tentative. Gippal’s childhood memories in Luca were not often stoked into conversational fire, even back then.

“Mmhmm.”

“Black cat. Really old and grumpy. Think he had a soft spot for me, though. Used to tell me off when I’d get home after summer.”

Lana meows.

“Yeah, that’s right, sweetheart, he would have liked you too.” He mutters. There’s that rare smile, neither flirtatious nor cocky nor tipsy, just barely concealed affection.

“You are crazy, you know that.” She teases, lightly.

“Don’t you talk to your houseplants?”

“Shh,” she whispers, “it helps them grow. What was his name?"

"Aha," Gippal smiles then, small sound of laughter, "Ma named him Cid."

"What! Why?"

"I think it really annoyed him, and she used to love giving him a hard time for dating your mother. Surrogate sister-in-law."

"You have such an amazing memory," she mutters, "I can't even remember the sound of their voices."

She flicks the screen across from them on, tuning into Luca’s main entertainment channel. A concert is streaming there, some unknown pop act. She feels him sink deeper into her sofa. Lana curling into herself, her tiny head slack and trusting on his thigh.  
She clears up around them, playing with the lights until the ambience is just right. Topping up their discarded wine glasses, she leaves the bottle on the coffee table beside them.

“Comfy?”

“Perfect.”

“Can’t believe you’ve already stolen her.”

“Pussy magnet,” he says as a sleepy grin stretches across his face. She ignores him, swears under her breath and sinks next to him on the couch. She is channel surfing. Concerts, news, interviews, documentaries about everything from forgotten temples in the Calm Lands, to Yevon's lies exposed. Lana makes shaky progress from Gippal’s lap onto hers. It is barely dusk outside.

“What do you wanna watch?”

But he is fast asleep. 8pm. Wednesday night. Arms that were crossed over his chest, slumping loosely to relax by his side.

“Hey, handsome,” nothing is proven to rouse him as swiftly as a compliment. He doesn’t move at first. Then he feels her hand and firm pressure on his chest, swats at it lazily, “bedtime.”

He lets her lead him in to the her bedroom and offers a weak willed protest when she’s placing her covers over him. She drops Lana on to the bed next to him.

“Just,” she starts, pats his cheek with one finger, “get some rest will you? I’ll wake you up later.”

She settles back on to the couch, half watches a rerun of a pop concert, whilst flicking through a volume of fashion photography, jotting notes of page numbers in a small notebook. She drifts into sleep herself, eyes down with the sun.

Then it is 2am. The buzz of the Comm display is blue and bright, a placeholder instead of the usual re runs. She peels herself from the cushions, Lana purring on her chest. She scoops her up and wanders groggily into her room and slots herself beneath the covers, next to Gippal. He doesn’t stir.

The next morning she is awoken by the clunk of a mug of coffee on her bedside table. He drops something wriggling, thrumming, on top of her. Big cat eyes and a barely perceptible mewl in her face when she cracks one eye open.

“Uhh,” she moans. The rest of the bottle of red wine, which she consumed alone, had collected itself into a blinding headache. She feels unrested due to her accidental couch slumber.

“Got work,” he says, “Sorry I wasn’t such great company last night.”

He’s found a fresh shirt he’d left behind from the weeks prior.

“I regret all that wine.”

“Just get up and decide not to be hungover.”

She shoves a pillow at him in rage, Lana jumping after it. He leaves her to waste her morning away. She prays Leblanc doesn’t notice the hungover dullness of her skin later on the midafternoon shoot.

* * *

Brother and Buddy’s shindig. The alternative underbelly of Luca’s nightlife. Barkeep’s speakeasy bar is transformed. The space opens up. Brother mans the complex mess of audio equipment on the mini stage. Gone are the various tables and chairs, instead it is now muted dancefloor, still illuminated with that derelict candle glow. His set is slow, lazy, electronic, a sophisticated soundtrack bringing out the dirty dancing of the patrons.

Rikku waits for Gippal. She perches on the side table in the ridiculously small entrance hall. Translucent white mini dress that hugs her figure; thigh high black boots; utility straps that disappear like suspenders under her dress. Her hair is in high twin buns and there is glitter along the line of her parting. Strobe higlighter- midnight warpaint- glows in the dark on her cheeks. Fingerless gloves and an oversized bomber jacket. She leans back on one hand and is inspecting her nails, playfully dangling her legs back and forth.

She feels the vibration of the music from below.

Gippal has to look twice when he walks in. Her outfit a non virginal echo of how she used to dress. She grins at his dark shirt, not tie, the top few buttons he accidentally leaves undone.

“Nice shirt.” She counters, “I think they’ve all taken something. It’s feral down there.”

She takes his hand and is walking backwards towards the door, leading them down the steps and into the crowd. Cute, crazy tilt of her head. The pattern of her make up hits differently in the soft sexy light of the basement. The first five minutes, slow progress to the bar. He strains to hear what she wants through the deep beat, the thrum of bass. She hooks one arm around his neck, lips pressing into his earlobe as she shouts her order in to his ear.

Vodka. Lime. Soda.

He holds two fingers up to her and she nods to confirm that- of course- she wants a double. The crowd in the venue is mainly Al Bhed- the style of music. They feel anonymous here, and they pass the hours, one electronic track after the other blurring into one. They dance close, safely here, another couple wrapped up in one another’s sexual tension. Before long, they are soaked through with sweat from the heat, the humidity, the press of each other. She wonders vaguely if some of the heat between them is from being this flush to one another. The way he slides his thumb up the side of her abdomen, how it brushes at the underwire of her bra- the goosebumps that blossom there, reactive chill at his touch. He develops a non verbal command, as he used to when he led her round the dancefloor, she intuitively moves closer with the pressure of the hand on her side. The trail of his fingers down her arm to pull her back to the bar. The vodka goes down quickly due to the thirst the relentless dancing brings. Again and again to the bar, too loud to hear one another, the evening passing with a secret language of touches and movement.

Then one particularly long wait for the bar, Rikku throws her arms around his neck, and drawls.

“Fuck this. Let’s go.”

She vaults on to his back and they fight their way back out to the cold fresh air. She giggles and shrieks as Gippal stumbles and drops her.

“Help me up!” she yells, as Gippal is reaching straight for a cigarette.

“Hey,” she pulls him down on top of her when he finally offers his hand.

“Get a room.”

Buddy laughs. They haven’t seen him in the dark as he slouches, cradling a cigarette against the breeze, on the outside wall. They dart up then, dusting themselves off. Rikku bobs her weight awkwardly between each foot, and Gippal is scratching the back of his head, avoiding Buddy’s eyes.

“Yeesh, I was joking, guys.”

Rikku giggles, a little forced. She bounds up to Buddy, congratulates him on the party. 

“Brother’s sure enjoying himself,” she quips, referring to the various attractive, modelesque women he had periodically invited onto his platform. Buddy looks past her then, makes eye contact with Gippal, who shrugs.

“He gets a lot more female attention now that he’s a word famous DJ,” Buddy says, artificial lightness to his tone. He flicks his cigarette to the floor, stamping it out.

“We, ugh,” Gippal starts, “We’re gonna go somewhere quieter for a drink if you wanna join.”

Rikku blinks at him, vaguely aware of some unspoken conversation they seem to be having. He follows them gratefully.

“But, hey! What about Brother?”

“I’m sure he can survive without me for a few hours.”

The air is warm, crisp. A major Blitz game is on this evening; Luca’s press machine is suitably distracted. Rikku realises that perhaps this is why Gippal invited Buddy along. The side of town they wander to caters to the workmen, builders, tehcnicians, essential to the construction of the Machine faction headquarters, the stadium, the multitude of apartment buildings that are springing up around the city. The bars are simpler, less expensive, security more lax. There is no dress code, no exclusivity. Bars welcome anyone’s custom, regardless of how well dressed. The first establishment they stumble into has a warm orange glow, no obnoxious music. The clientele are largely uninterested in their presence, attention focussed on the screens playing the game. Gippal buys a round of beer- a large glass of house wine for Rikku- while Buddy works out the pool table. Winner stays on. Rikku breaks as Gippal wanders back with the tray of drinks.

Buddy’s turn. He pots the first ball, then the second. He misses the third shot. Casually he leans back, using the small cube of chalk to freshen the end of the cue.

“I saw you guys making out at the stadium.”

Rikku immediately chokes on the wine she has just sipped from, a more savage burn down the back of her throat than the initial taste.

“Rikku’s fault.”

She glares at him. Unbelievable. Shifting blame like they’d been caught stealing from the central pantry at Home. She recovers somewhat and shoots a murderous glare at him.

“Don’t tell anyone, especially Brother. Or Pops!” she shudders, dramatically missing her shot and cursing, “Shit.”

“I’m sure no one would be surprised that you guys are dati-”

“We’re not dating!” They both chime together. Buddy laughs, pots another two balls. He thrashes her then- next round on her. She joins them with a new tray of beer and her staple of cheap wine.

“Some trash talk that was.” Rikku growls as she walks back over, pouting at the much closer match between Gippal and Buddy.

“Knew it would work.” Buddy quips, “But, seriously, a party with your entire living family in attendance is probably not the most discreet place.”

“We just got carried away, right?” Rikku looks to Gippal for reassurance.

“I’m concentrating.” Gippal mutters, his competitive streak emerging.

“Were you not enjoying the party earlier?” Rikku turns her attention to Buddy then- this was supposed to be their party after all.

“Brother needs to,” he says tentatively, “blow of some steam with the fairer sex once in a while. So I’m just gonna leave him to it. I’ll be there in the morning.”

“Player.” Gippal says, in Al Bhed. He pots the black, “Cid’s girl, you’re up.”

She sucks at pool. She hates losing. Buddy retreats to the bar to get their order in.

They pass the rest of the night with slow, casual games of pool. Rikku loses every single time. The drunkenness stretches on but settles into long nonsensical conversation and bouts of irrepressible laughter at previous misdeeds. The exchange of anecdotes and forgotten secrets continues in to the early hours of the morning. They escort Buddy back to the Celsius. She and Gippal end up back at hers, armoured against her air conditioning under the many blankets piled on to her bed. Lana purrs loudly next to her ear, and she fitfully tosses and turns, woken frequently by Gippal’s drunken snoring next to her. 

This time she wakes to the smell of sizzling meat as her eyes protest violently to the sunlight streaming through her windows. She is in last night’s dress but her hair is sticky and tangled, the glamour of the glitter now a creeping regret as she thinks of trying to brush it out. First stop she makes is to her dressing table, and starts to wipe old make up away. She begins the horrific task of brushing her hair out. Hungover despair. Gippal laughs at her when he walks in, sees her with her head limply in her arms. He places coffee and a plate of bacon and bread on the table.

“I’m unsent.” She moans.

“You look it.”

“Don’t be mean,” she whines, “I’m dying here.”

She sips the coffee, and finds despite the state she’s in wolfs the food down. Gippal retreats in to the bathroom and she hears the hiss of shower spray. She slips in to her bathrobe, glad to be rid of last night’s clothes and underwear. She plans to chill on the couch until Gippal is done with his shower but he open door of the bathroom, the cloud of steam lying beyond, calls to her. A brazen invitation. Her bathroom is large. A clawfoot bath stands in front of a floor length frosted window. Twin sinks sit in front of a large mirror. On the marble counter is a pyramid of rolled soft grey towels. Gippal is obscured through the steam rising around him in the spacious shower. He doesn’t hear her enter, deafened by the roar of the waterfall.

“Do you mind if,” she pauses, “I clean my teeth?”

“Sure.” His reply is muffled by the rising steam, the misted glass. She finishes cleaning her teeth and washes her face with something expensive, some gift from Leblanc, or maybe she’d stolen it from a shoot, she can’t recall.

“Pass me a towel.”

She grapples one of the towels over the top of the glass divide. The shower stream ceases and silence curls around them like the steam. He slides the shower door open.

“Shower’s free.”

He stands behind her and she turns to him, reaching out to wipe a stray droplet from his collarbone, unconsciously. Soft, slick skin under her fingertips and a smile inches over his face. She feels cold in the close humidity, feels the chill of her fresh breath against her lips as she exhales. The hesitation before she withdraws her hand from his chest is his cue. He kisses her, pressing her body into the counter, gripping her waist sturdily. His other hand tangles in to the mane of her hair. He lifts her up and she draws him to her. Loosely tied, her gown falls open. His towel falls down in the commotion. Secured there on the counter, she feels his thumb caressing the side of her breast. Ferociously, she locks her lips to his, pushes her weight on to him, and a rush of heat floods her as his hands grip her thighs.

“Gonna need another shower if you keep behaving this dirty.”

“Yes, right now,” she murmurs. Whilst still aloft, she pushes her torso away from him so she can extricate the robe from between them. She slides it down her shoulders, allowing it to drop to the floor. All the while he maneuvers them back to the shower. Without placing her down, he continues to kiss her as she blindly gropes for the valve, pulls it frantically on. He places her down and she presses him in to the tiles as the cloud of steam billows around them.

“Fuck,” he says, because she is on her knees in one swift movement, “Rikku.”

She slides one hand around his cock, then teases him with kisses on his upper thigh, the crest of his hip. Her other hand crawls upwards and finds his. She interlocks their fingers, and guides his hand to rest on her head. Then, he is swearing deliriously, as she does magic things to him with her tongue. The warm insistent sensation of her mouth around him. He doubts this is his reality, as the fog of the shower presses around them, and he loses track of time. He looks down and one moment of clear eye contact later, reality and climax crash into him. He spills into her mouth, which she wipes when she is suddenly standing up in front of him again.

“Now get out so I can shower.” She pats him on the cheek.

“Just," he says weakly, "Give me a minute.”

After her shower, she emerges into the living area. Her usual weekend attire of yoga gear. She starts her yoga flows in the afternoon sun on her balcony. Gippal works his way through one of her books in the bathrobe he reclaims after their shower. He predictably falls asleep, book lapsed closed and Lana burrowed next to him.

Rikku prods him awake later in the afternoon.

“I need to tell you something.” He says, when he has blinked himself sufficiently awake.

“Sounds serious.”

“I used your toothbrush.”

“Ew, gross.”  
  
They are back to arguing, but she is losing and crawls up on to his lap. Shuts him up in the new and most effective way she knows how.

“I have nothing planned for the next three days, princess.” He says. He feels his arousal rising because every time she goes to touch him, seduce him, it always so dizzyingly well timed. He just about forgets all the lines they’ve crossed and she’ll pull him back- her tongue in his mouth, her crotch pressing over his, a sneaky whisper into his cheek. He has blinked and over the course of this last month since they kissed, she has developed this command over him.

“Well, then,” Rikku purrs, pausing to kiss him deeply, “let’s go get some of your things and come back here.”

“What would we do back here for three whole days?” he asks, innocently enough.

“Bad things.” She promises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can't get them to shut up, sometimes


	6. Chapter 6

Time passes this way. Midweek takeouts at her apartment, he usually falls asleep on her couch, while she mindlessly watches the broadcasts. One time, she simply hands him her key on her way out of her front door, en route to a night shoot, then stumbles back in sleepy, drunk after a late nightcap with Leblanc. He's fallen asleep over the covers of her bed. Too exhausted to move him, she flicks the air conditioning off, bats a purring Lana away and she passes out on top too, face down, with the cat on her back.

Other times she drags him out for the night. He cooks them something quick, which she barely touches, and he watches her apply her make up. She perfects delicate brush strokes, biting her lip with concentration, the coquettish turn of her cheek to see how the light hits. He grouches at how long it’s taking, or tries to distract her. Rarely, on his knees, he gently removes the brush from her fingers, turns her face to his and kisses her.

Sometimes times he’s unzipping her from her dress as soon as she has slipped it on- gravity’s pull between them so tight they don’t make it out of the front door. All that make up, the intricacy of her hair, wasted. Mostly, though, they make it out to the exclusive parties and keep their hands to themselves for the entirety of the night. These nights he orbits her- the furthest planet, passing through phases, relying on the moon for light. That soft swish and click of the hovercar partition on the ride home becomes a starting gun- his fingers learn to curl habitually into her hair- a brief invitation- and he doesn’t have to pull her in to kiss him. They stumble, a mess of limbs, through her front door, past midnight.

In the space of six months, he has kissed her lips in every shade of her lipstick, and they start to work their way through next season’s samples. He knows every inch of her skin. He finds the knots of tension in her back; pinpoints every one of her moles; delights in the coming and going of freckles on her chest, shifting as continually as the back and forth of her tan. So familiar he becomes with her body that her birthmark emblazons itself in his mind as permanently as it is printed above her left hip.

She spends up to a week at a time on shoots elsewhere in Spira. When she is away, the cameras catch him. Dinner here with a model, leaving a party there with a sphere producer, brunch with another model. This was her idea to throw them off the scent. He can be back in Djose for a weeks at a time. The gradual dismantling of the work there. Dissemination of teams and projects between Luca and Bevelle. Rikku’s turn then, and he can keep track of the parties she attends and her faux love interests in the magazines, and increasingly the new gossip broadcast the workers play in the background at the temple.

Most of their public appearances together costar Leblanc, Tidus, even Paine- her hit series of novels maintaining her celebrity status in its own right. Brother and Buddy make a name for themselves on the music scene- the alternative, dirty, underground music scene. An acquired Young Lucan taste. In between the brief speculative obsessions with her love life, the world obsesses over Rikku herself and her growing cabal of skinny, fashionable friends. At first, Calli with her burgeoning singing career- hair, always, a sleek sky high ponytail- and Sarra with her Old Lucan money and socialite status, rebelling against Daddy by working for the Machine Faction. Incidentally, she is Calli’s best friend. The touch of any of Yuna’s guardians transforms even the most unlikely of acquaintances into a brief celebrity; such as the one time Clasko had met Rikku on the Highroad with the new chocobo she’d purchased. Doing his job, but there was a week of speculation about who he was.

Brunch, lunch, dinner building to the impossible. Attempts to dine publicly increasingly less private. Rikku is stopped for autographs; the occasional person- usually female- asks Gippal. Throw Tidus or, Fayth forbid, Yuna in to the mix- unbearable. They start to meet for lunch in his office, or backstage at whatever venue she is shooting at. The glacial restaurant on the upper levels of the stadium becomes Luca’s most exclusive spot- immacutely dressed Al Bhed bouncers and its strict no sphere policy easily bestowing it go-to status for Luca’s high society. Untouchable here. That celebrity snow globe. Monthly, there is a large luncheon which can feature any combination of the Gullwings, guardians, political leaders and acquaintances-of-the-High-Summoner. More than once these lunches stretch into the evening, an untraceable amount of wine and champagne.

Summer bleeds in to winter. Blitz season ends. Yuna and Tidus settle back into bliss on Besaid. Winter gives Rikku busywork- countless photoshoots, fittings- the spreads the public will see in three months, already shot. Pre-emptive strike. Next season: new collections to showcase, new interviews to give, new clothes to fit in to, new make-up swatches to test. The lens of the public swivels back from Blitz to focus on her and her friends- the portrait’s subject their mundane, hedonistic lives. The Speakeasy and the stadium’s restaurant are the only places they let their hair down uninhibited.

The thrum and pressure and vibrancy of Luca’s party scene fades to a muted undercurrent. The end of Blitz season lulls the city into a transient slumber, awaiting the announcement of the team player departures and exchanges. New recruits. Rikku and Gippal, still busy, fall into bed as frequently as once a week. Fewer parties. Fewer planned nights in. The fever pitch of Gippal’s work crescendos- he answers her late night Comm calls- and she either lures him out of his den, so they can drink wine, or more often it lies forgotten on the kitchen counter.

Rikku can tell that Gippal is overdoing it on these nights. When he’s letting herself in through her door. He has her spare key. He must do. Sometimes, he kisses her with a hunger- a fervency. Before, often, he even says hello. He doesn’t want to talk. Takes the wine bottle right out of her hand, and pushes her on to the kitchen counter instead. Then his mind gets the better of him, pulls away to murmur what she thinks is an apology, but she’s too pissed off. Because she’s neither seen nor heard nor really thought about him – _honest!-_ for a week. Then, here, no manners, hands in her hair. Such familiarity. Exactly what she intended, if she’s really honest. So she silences him, wrapping her legs around his waist, finger on his lips.

_Call me princess._

He doesn’t get the words out before she’s pushing her tongue into his mouth. Then, he sighs, and it’s as though his soul leaves him. The coiled, bruising tension of his fingers on her hip melts. Time slows down. They fuck until he passes out in her bed, and she’s lighting one of the cigarettes she pilfers from his jacket, standing on her balcony, finally enjoying a glass of the red wine.

By sunrise, the lion is deep asleep. She awakens- needy, soft, moaning in protest when the usual call from, probably, Sarra drags her away to answer the Comm. Crestfallen, thirty minutes later, shirt buttoned up wrong, at the kitchen counter, Gippal glares into the bottom of the coffee mug she hands him. And this is the routine- they have less fun, talk less shit. She is the salve to the relentless stress of everyone wanting a piece of his time, and he is the thrill in the dreary routine of her glittering celebrity life. Her dirty little secret while she spins the magazines whichever way she wants.

“I have to go,” he mutters one morning, in the nape of her neck, into a curl of soft hair. It’s the tail end of winter, meaningless in Luca’s constant heat.

“Mmm,” she has fallen asleep again, glowing and sated, “go on then.”

She draws the covers around, anticipating the absence of his body heat.

“No, Rikku,” he groans, “I’m going for a while. To Djose. Bevelle.”

She yawns, disgruntled, frazzled, but blearily turns her attention to him, “A while?”

“I don’t know how long.”

“Oh,” doubtful, “really?”

“Four weeks?” he says.

“You don’t sound so sure.” she says. Gippal extricates himself from her, the blankets. There is a sobriety to his tone that is confusing this early. She still has that pre-caffeine, post-coital fog.

“No, I,” he gestures, abruptly smiles, “just thought I’d let you know…”

He trails off. Rikku sits up straight, wrapping the blanket around her. Yawns once more to clear the fog and her eyes are brighter, more awake. She observes as he starts to dress. The deliberate care he is applying to each button. Silence hangs, pregnant and overdue. Something is unsaid, but it’s eluding him.

“When are you leaving?”

“Tonight.”

She opens her mouth. Annoyance jolts her awake more than coffee could. She starts to say something and stops herself. She tries not to scowl but he looks up too swiftly.

“What?”

“It’s just,” she says, sighs, softening, “you must have known you were going?”

“I couldn’t find the right moment.”

Rikku’s face twists, briefly. Then it is gone.

“Well, at least, I’m getting a goodbye.”

She feels nauseated the second she’s said it.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks defensively, glaring.

Her eyes narrow at him and she shivers. The air conditioning. She really needs to sort that out. There is something crackling in the air- a pressure that could break in to a storm right here between them. She closes her eyes and breathes in. Laughs nervously. The unspoken hurt of it all is still a persistent ghost they can’t exorcise. Because they won’t talk about it.

“You call me when you’re already in Djose over the Comm, you know? Or I find out when I call you and Sarra answers…”

She rambles until the tension melts from his shoulders. He throws her robe at her.

“Let’s go for breakfast.” He states. She hears _Sorry, it’s last minute, I’ll miss you too._

Later, she leaves him outside the Faction's entrance. Rikku, childlike, scuffs one of her boots on the stone walkway. Ankle boots, plain summer dress, messy hair, giant sunglasses, even though she’d barely had to walk ten steps from the private hover. She starts depositing random items from her bomber jacket into his hands.

“Oh!” she exclaims, “and here’s your special lighter!”

She drops the cool, metallic weight of it into his palm. He lost this three months ago.

“Some things never change,” he grumbles.

“So,” she smiles sweetly, pushes the frames up into her hair, “call me, okay?”

“I’ll think about it,” he shrugs, but grins at her.

He leans close to her, and Rikku momentarily stops breathing. She expects him to kiss her.

 _Come with me._ But she can’t. _Fuck it, I’ll stay._ But he won’t. The moment for last minute declarations passes.

Sometimes this is all so transactional. So professional. The imagined surveillance from the paparazzi never let this happen like something normal. She thinks vaguely that she’s gone about this all wrong. Now they’re saying goodbye on the street, like it’s the end of one of his networking lunches. He should kiss her. Right now. No apology. But he won’t. Because she’s made it clear. No cameras. Their little exciting secret. No apology.

_This doesn’t have to mean anything._

The briefest moment of eye contact passes- in a parallel universe he kisses her, surely- and he embraces her. Quelling the pinprick burn of tears, she hugs him back fiercely.

It always takes goodbye. These last few months. This ridiculous friendship. This- whatever _this_ is.

She soaks up the warmth of him more readily than a cat caught in a sunbeam. Realisation dawns slowly upon her.

Whatever this is means everything.

* * *

Rikku and Paine take a muted lunch at the stadium a few days later. Other couples- business partners, lovers- pepper the space, while they settle into their usual black velvet booth. Champagne on ice, ready, waiting. The usual.

“Where have you been all winter?” Paine asks. A waiter pops the champagne.

“Leblanc keeps me busy,” Rikku says, “but, hey! I saw you last week at lunch. Right here.”

Paine smiles into her champagne glass, is about to say something. She takes a sip instead.

“Spit it out!” Rikku leans in. Paine clearly itches to talk.

“It’s just,” Paine ventures, that small smirk, “when you and Gippal are in the same room, the rest of us may as well not be here.”

“What,” she croaks, betrayed by the brazen blush she can’t control, “What do you mean?”

“Ah,” Paine exhales, “I thought so.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Rikku insists, frantically tapping her foot against the leg of the table.

“Minus fifty respect points.”

“What!”

“For going there,” Paine drops her voice to a whisper, “With Gippal.”

“Is it _that_ obvious?” Rikku mumbles. No use in pretending once insightful Dr. P has your number.

“I can ask the others if they’ve noticed if you want.”

“No, please, don’t.” Rikku says queasily. Paine maintains that stoic silence, lets it stretch to its awkward breaking point, makes a meal out of refilling their champagne glasses to the top, and avoids looking at Rikku. One of them will crack first.

“Ugh, fine, so we made out at the Blitz gala-”

Rikku is off with the sordid details, sisterly relief at having another female's take. Paine’s face at certain details- _Stop. Gippal is like my brother-_ the eye rolls, impressed intrigue at the casualness of the whole situation.

“That was. A lot.” She sips again, “I jusy thought you were both too dense to pick up on the mutual flirting-”

“Hey!”

“-not that you’ve been having a secret love affair this whole time.”

“It’s not a love affair.” Rikku corrects, hastily, “We’re like. Fuck buddies?”

“Minus ten more.”

“Meanie!”

They both laugh, and conversations moves on. Paine tells her of the new novel she is working on. Fiction after her memoirs of the Crimson Squad and the Vegnagun were a hit. Where her portrayal of them all had been fair, she’d dished out enough wit and humour. Rikku likes to believe their characters had all been entertainingly embellished. Spira had loved the little access to their souls. Paine is working now on some deep sombre exploration of death, what it means then and now, post Sin. When Nooj is busy with the Youth League, Paine retreats to Luca. She owns a small house on the shoreline, with a comfortable desk affronting a large window- the perfect ocean vista.

Rikku talks about her contract ending soon with Leblanc and her decision not to renew it. She ventures a skeleton of a plan for her future endeavors to Paine- a trusted confidante who won’t lie to preserve her feelings. Rikku plans to launch her own range of cosmetics. An unexpected passion of hers. She rarely requires a make-up artist anymore. She transforms herself into Leblanc’s creative visions with relative ease now, and is as skilled when working on others. The modelling contract closes in a couple of weeks. Leblanc had tried to get her to stay, yet Rikku wants time away from the cameras, at least professionally.

“I think that’s a great idea.” Paine says after some consideration, “You’d have to start up in Bevelle, though.”

  
“I know.” She quips.

Beneath the high ceremonial layers of colourful historic buildings and the Grand Temple of Bevelle is a vast sprawling city of many districts. Yevon has long allowed the use of machina to support its industries; therefore manufacture, including cosmetics, still largely resides there, demand only building as they enter this new age of hedonism and longevity.

Paine says, “I’m sure Rin would help you out.”

“You’re not worried about the- hostility there?”

“You can handle it.” Paine smiles at her. “You were the first Al Bhed guardian to a High Summoner, were you not?”

“I guess.”

The Bevellian media is an entirely different beast. Where scandal, love affairs, best dressed were Luca’s bread and butter, a large conservative news corporation dominates Bevelle. For the last one hundred years. The portrayal of the Al Bhed still lags in pre-Calm bigotry. Although the younger more liberal members of high society actively encourage and embrace the Al Bhed, the undercurrent of prejudice remains strong and dangerous.

Their conversation turns to Yuna’s wedding, two months away now, and the provisional plans to land in Besaid early for the Bachelorette. To pamper the bride, calm her nerves.

* * *

“You sure you’ll be okay in Bevelle, love?” Leblanc asks her on that final shoot. Four weeks later.

Rikku is touched when Leblanc hurries her usual dressing assistant away and helps her out of the gown herself. It is emerald green, large bell sleeves, precariously hung from a bardot neckline. The sleeves are longer than her arms, the skirt of the gown settling into a train. Somehow backless. Hair is tightly wound into a high bun. Her makeup is regal. Ruby red lips. Stark simple sweep of black eyeliner. A single, bloated emerald sits in the pocket of her throat. Rikku’s goodbye shoot is a collection of inaccessible gowns, jewellery as old as Sin, and serious pensive looks beyond the camera lens. The most conservative selection of gowns Leblanc has given her yet. More mature. Demure. A retirement cover story. Farewell.

In the lead up to her departure, Rikku has been mentoring Sarra and manages to subtly introduce her to Leblanc, planting the seed of her modeling career. She tests well in front of the camera. As Rikku transitions out of the limelight, and Sarra starts to appear in the occasional magazine spread. The magazines increasingly obsess over Calli and Sarra. Calli with her powerful voice and appeal to the younger generation, and her best model friend Sarra. Two new rising stars with their own solar system of intrigue.

“Drinks!” Leblanc says, and they retreat to the bar of the hotel. Rikku in her bomber jacket, a short simple black dress, unremarkable, but made of some of the finest cotton. The Al Bhed Psyches logo blazes on the back of her jacket. The customary sunglasses atop her head. That familiar half-cocked disguise, even though it is dark outside.

“Don’t forget about me!” Leblanc says as she secures them a bottle of champagne. They perch at the bar. The shiny black bartop is pristine. Clean, potentially underused. She stops the bartener from popping it for them, and instead hands it to Rikku.

“Isn’t this hotel where I had my very first shoot?” she giggles, as froth spills from the lip of the bottle.

“It is. Well noticed.” She says.

Her friendship with Leblanc has blossomed, and she has a sense of sadness that she won’t see her as often. For old time’s sake, they pre-drink before the usual wrap party. They go back up to Rikku’s hotel room, trying on all her dresses. Leblanc borrows one of Rikku’s black numbers, of which she owns a few, but rarely wears to events. Black feels off limits to her, still. Too sombre, and she prefers bright, light, vibrant. For Rikku a dress of champagne gold. It is the finest plated chain mail, as delicate as silk. The dress dips into a cowl between her breasts. Backless, which is easily a hallmark of her fashion now, and a long thin chain forms the straps of a halter neck, which she knots at the nape of her neck. The metal is icy cold as she slips into it.

They venture back down to the bar, now decked out and ready for the party. They’ve shared another bottle between them whilst getting ready. Rikku’s hair, released from its tightly coiled bun, settles into soft waves after she brushes the tangles out. They bounce around her shoulders, one of these rare times she wears it down and unadorned in public. Leblanc and Rikku are the most tipsy they’ve been in a long while. She allows herself to be led around the room, Leblanc introducing her to all her _eligible_ male acquaintances. She presents Rikku like a new diamond necklace, glittering in her hand, gingerly placing her in front of potentially buyers.

Some of the Luca Goers are in attendance. Calli is on the arm of one of the younger new players, both of them barely sixteen. Rikku spots Sarra, hugging and air kissing her in no time, admiring the girl’s pink satin jumpsuit, which is usually Calli’s colour. Today Calli’s sleek dark ponytail is complimented by a deep ruby red figure hugging minidress, a sweetheart neckline, small bardot cap sleeves.

“How did Gippal take it?” Rikku asks politely, referring to Sarra’s plan to change career. Leblanc has offered a modelling contract.

“You know, he's so busy right now. I just can’t get hold of him. I’ve just handed my notice in to Nhadala instead.” Sarra shrugs.

“What is he even up to?” Rikku says. Sarra catches the flicker of concern in her voice.

“You haven’t heard from him either?"

“Why would I?” Rikku says quickly. Truthfully, he doesn’t call, and neither does she. She refuses to dial through to Djose. Or Bevelle. Chasing him around Spira when he knows exactly where her Commsphere lies. He’s busy. Maybe he’s forgotten about her now that she is too far to exert her draw on him. This is what he does. Disappears. Into the desert at night with his more fun, more dangerous friends. To the Crimson Squad with his delusions of glory. Off the airship post Calm to mastermind the Machine Faction. Alone.

The truth is that she pulls his focus. He pulls _her_ focus. And now he is gone for however-long and can work on whatever life-altering plans he has in peace. No pesky _Cid_ _’s Girl_ , crawling on to his lap in his office, creeping out in the early morning because of her insistence on secrecy. No early hours Comm calls when she knows he is still at his desk. Seducing him by eating ice cream slowly off her spoon on camera, until he tells her to wait _. T_ _hirty minutes_. No more accidental early nights on her sofa with Lana settled on his chest.

She squeezes her eyes shut, a wobble of emotion sparking behind her eyelids. This first moment of fun in the last few weeks, after endless shoots, and his absence spoils it. This isn’t fun without him. She is drunk. Without him. The first time since she last saw him. She wants to cry. She gulps the last of her champagne down.

“Are you okay?” Sarra asks, as Rikku sways slightly, insecure in her gleaming heels.

“I’m fine.” Rikku beams falsely, “Who’s that, with Calli?”

“Oh,” Sarra waves casually towards them, “That’s Gillisk, the Goers’ latest recruit.”

Sarra and Rikku join them at the large table. A handful of the other players are out too. Graav, Bickson, the same team from four years ago. Rikku, Sarra and Calli sink another bottle of fizz between them, and as the champagne flows, Rikku’s mouth runs away with her. She becomes quickly acquainted with the rest of the table. The speed at which she consumes the alcohol causes the night to blur into a quick hour. Forgotten small talk, sloppy dancing, flashing lights- from the dancefloor, maybe a photographer. She kisses someone. Maybe more than one person. Stumbles into Leblanc with a full glass of white wine, someone else’s sunglasses on, talking shit.

“Best get you home, love.” Leblanc ushers her to the door. Glad of the sunglasses to shield her from the flashing lights of the paparazzi, Rikku clings for dear life to Leblanc’s arm, the other hand still clutches the wine glass.

“Why are we going?” Rikku whines, as the clamber in to the back of the hover, “I was having fun.”

“I could see that.” Leblanc has a hazy look of concern, “Is everything alright, love?”

“Suuuurree.” Rikku slurs. Leblanc gently relinquishes the wine glass from her hand, against weak-willed, wasted protest. Rikku perches precariously on her seat, almost flying when the hover takes a corner at a reasonable pace but it feels blindingly fast in her drunken state, “Why wouldn’t I be? I’m single, and I don’t need to wait around for assholes to call me.”

“What are you talking about?” Leblanc asks.

“He just disappeared. Again.” Rikku mumbles. She isn’t making much sense after that. Leblanc gently guides her into the guest bedroom of her vast three storey Lucan townhouse. Fuchsia, embroidered silk sheets and panelled walls. Sobered slightly from her tears, Rikku sinks in to the bedsheets, despite Leblanc throwing pyjamas her way.

“Sorry,” she mumbles. She is wiping her make up away with a cloth Leblanc hands her. The wine glass is long forgotten. A tall drink of water on her bedside.

“What’s going on?” She asks gently.

“I was seeing someone- kind of -”

“What?”

“But he, ugh, I don’t know, it’s complicated.”

“I’ve got time.”

“I just. It’s a casual thing but I miss him. We’re friends. I think?” She closes her eyes. Nausea rushes to her as she feels herself spin on the spot. A staff member knocks lightly at the door. Leblanc asks for tea to be brought up.

“Friends with benefits?” Leblanc asks. Rikku shivers slightly at the term. Putting it that way simplifies it. That isn’t how they define it. They don’t talk about it. Usually he is back after only a week, and so frequent their contact that she barely has chance to miss him. He’s burrowed into her skin and her heart and her memories. He is her best friend. Her lover. The person she thought she’d lost forever when he left to be a Crusader. She has grieved him already this lifetime. She hated him for two years, for not finding her at the start of the Calm, for him letting her think he was dead. She’d rejoiced, despite that, that he treated her the same as ever when they run into one another in Djose.

“You should tell him how you feel.” Leblanc declares, matter-of-fact, “That you love-“

Rikku shakes her head vigorously, “I don't love him.”

“It won’t do to be crying in the middle of the night about a man you don’t even love.” Leblanc says, kindly, laying her hand on Rikku’s shoulder.

Then Rikku sobs- small gasps, and then the tears flow freely, streaming down her cheeks. A knock on the door- tea is here. Rikku shakily changes into Leblanc’s ridiculously plush pyjamas. The metal dress pools heavily into a heap on the ground. Rikku ties her hair into a messy bun, mascara long wiped away.

“I’m listening, love.” Leblanc says quietly. Rikku pours her heart out while Leblanc pours the tea.

* * *

Gippal despairs when Rin insists- four weeks after he leaves Luca- that he travels to Bevelle, too. He hates the place. The stench of corruption makes his skin crawl. The thinly veiled bigotry of the older generation of council members. The colourful grandeur of the Temple City. To say nothing of the time he literally jumped into hell here, the place gives him bad vibes. Rin insists that he comes to settle the workforce in, show his face and accept the false niceties the Temple’s council barely muster at these diplomatic meetings. His patience for politics has always been low, but he acknowledges it as a necessary evil, and the cost he pays for progress.

He arrives in the city late the night before the formal welcome breakfast. A redhaired woman, who introduces herself as Rin’s secretary, escorts him to the Bevelle headquarters.

“Ah Gippal,” Rin says as he enters. It is a large colourful space. A vast bookshelf lines the entirety of one wall and is packed with books, plants, antiques and oddities. He feels as though he has stepped in to a travel agency.

“Hey,” he says, rubbing his temple, tired from the journey. The oil lamp on Rin’s desk unnerves him, when the office is fitted with electric lighting.

“It’s been a few months, Gippal.”

“Yeah, sorry,” he says, “I trust you to handle things this side.”

“Noted.” Rin pauses, leans back in his chair. He gestures at the empty chair opposite. Gippal feels a sense of disappointment from his uncle, as he sinks down.

“Thank you for putting up with things here.” Gippal says sincerely.

“I need to talk to you about something,” Rin says, “It’s about the Farplane.”

“We’ve already been there and I don’t think-”

“You mistake me,” Rin says, “I agree, we would be wasting our time assisting the Guado in their restoration.”

“Okay.” Gippal says, uncertainly.

“However, Shinra is working on a solution to a problem that we will run into sooner or later.”

“I’m hoping later,” Gippal groans.

“There are areas of Spira where we’ve picked up dense pyrefly activity, far below the surface of the earth,” Rin continues.

Gippal listens, uneasily. He doesn’t doubt Shinra’s ingenuity, but more the unprecedented nature of what Rin and Shinra consistently propose to him at the annual meetings. He deflects them every year. This need to find a more innovative way to power Spira’s technology hasn’t been, still isn’t, that pressing in his mind. Outside of Luca and Bevelle, however, the gap between the rural settlements and cities is growing, along with resentment of the populations there. The technology they are creating is moving faster than the limited energy they have. Luca and Bevelle benefit from the their oceanside locations and the natural power of the tide.

“All we want is to try, Gippal.”

“I just,” he relents, “I’ll let you put it to them tomorrow, and they can have the final say.”

The silence settles between, still frosty. Gippal yawns, and Rin’s secretary shows him to the guest quarters. He sleeps fitfully.

He is relieved to find Rin in the shirt, tie, trouser custom of Luca when he enters his office the next morning. Where Baralai has also adopted this more modern style, albeit with the decorative accents to remind all that he is of New Yevon, the older members belligerently don the traditional garb.

Rin is finishing up on the Commsphere as he walks through the door.

“Let’s get this over with,” Gippal mutters. He craves a cigarette but has not found the opportunity since arriving the day before.

The rest of the morning is spent at a large round table in one the grand temple’s dining halls. He pulls Baralai in to a friendly hug. Both of them far too busy in the preceding few months to have spent any social time together. The service is silent, professional, pre-empting every time they need a refill of water, more bread. He is seated next to Baralai, with Rin on his other side, and the opposite crescent of the table, the more elderly contigent. One of them in particular, the Yevonite mirror of Cid. Opinionated, derisive, silver black hair glinting across the table. Gippal recalls that his name is Boyka. Fat cat springs to mind. He is influential, from ancient family stock in Bevelle, present here at this table for his wealth, rather than his shining example of upholding Yevon’s values.

“Aha! I always look forward to the latest magic tricks you Al Bhed cook up.”

Gippal bristles. Baralai politely agrees with Boyka’s sentiment, but with a more subtle statement welcoming them to Bevelle. Nooj clears his throat during the tense silence that stretches.

“To think we’d have Al Bhed at this table. I just can’t get used to it.” Boyka says jovially.

Gippal doesn’t respond. He is expected to, he thinks. He knows Rin will see the colour rising in his cheeks. Rin cuts in.

“A pleasure to enjoy Spira’s prosperous future together. United in purpose, if not belief.”

“Ha! Let’s not mix business with pleasure. Eat up!”

Boyka greedily drinks from his glass and clicks his fingers rudely at the waitress for a refill. She scuttles over and he grumbles when the barest tremor in her grip causes minor spillage.

“Watch it, woman.”

Relief comes at the end of the meal when the plates are cleared around them, and they begin proceedings. Rin begins a convincing monologue about the untapped potential of the large concentrations of pyreflies, and the potential to utilise its flow for energy, and not in any way interfere with it. Purely experimental, currently, but this may allow them to advance to the greatness of the past- cities that never sleep. Boyka leans in with greedy interest, an opportunity for wealth, although there is a murmuring of unrest amongst the eldest two members. Baralai, most diplomatically, proposes that they be allow to bring a detailed proposal back to them, and allow full supervision of Youth League and New Yevon representatives- full transparency. Gippal is still unsure.

The rest of the meeting passes uneventfully. Baralai and he retire to the Praetor’s quarters to catch up. Duties parked for the day, they break in to his whiskey, which he serves him in an ornate crystal tumbler.

“Apologies for Boyka’s overzealousness,” Baralai says, “He carries a lot of influence with the media here and, as much as he is a hindrance, it is necessary to keep him on side.”

“I guess it would be too easy if anti Al Bhed sentiment were to just disappear overnight.”

“We are working on it,” Baralai says sadly, “but these older generations are stubborn. They respect Rin. At least, I think they do.”

Boyka personifies Old Yevon corruption. His name is synonymous with the Bevelle Post, the dominant newspaper and sphere broadcaster. Although his fortune comes from inheritence, he is not of Bevellian clergy descent, but rather the heir to one of the oldest families to settle in Bevelle. Feudal leaders, later arms dealers, with ties all the way back to prominent political, warmongering figures of the Bevelle-Zanarkand war 1000 years ago. When war had wrought Sin, his ancestors had ventured into sowing seeds of anti-machina sentiment. There is particular distaste in his mouth, since discovering Boyka’s key investment in the whole Crimson Squad operation (and also Operation Mi’hen). A particularly disgusting letter arguing for the inclusion of the Al Bhed into the ranks of the crusaders to _pad the ranks_ and _ensure the Al Bhed finally shoulder their part in atonement_ still haunts him. Boyka had argued that keeping the Al Bhed where they could see them would allow greater control over _the heathens_. Gippal hates himself for his previously honeyed aspirations to military service and glory.

Boyka continues to poison the water with the insidious narrative that spews forth from the papers he publishes- the _Post_ , Bevelle’s broadsheet, and its lesser, trashier, tabloid cousin, _The Express._ The Al Bhed should set up their own central home, and not integrate themselves so readily. They should overturn their technology completely to Bevelle to ensure there is no risk of war. The Al Bhed are a reckless, hedonistic, promiscuous, uncivilised bunch with a penchant for loud, disruptive parties; for laziness due to machina making their lives cushy; that all this communication tech lets them eavesdrop on the conversations of normal Spirans. Boyka denies that these are things that he believes himself- his journalists have freedom of speech, he has no control over what they say, they merely reflect the sentiment of the average Bevellian. That sly smile- _we all still hate you, deep down_.

Gippal does not feel remorse for the scarcity of his visits. His skin crawls at the memory of Vegnagun, the history of Yevon’s corruption, and the racist hangover that persists, funded by years of blood money. Boyka brings out Gippal’s temper, which he hasn’t let control him since his teenage years. He is glad to leave the political navigation to Rin. Mild-mannered, unflappable, _get-along-with-everyone_ Rin.

“Rin is very persuasive” Gippal says.

“You didn’t seem as excited about his proposal.”

Gippal leans back in his chair, taking a long sip of the neat whiskey, “A small bundle of pyreflies almost destroyed the world two years ago.”

“Touché.”

“Just don’t think we should go messing around in the Farplane so readily.”

“I’ll keep an open mind,” Baralai says, diplomatic, “I’m sure we can come to understand it better if we work together- Yevon, Al Bhed, Guado.”

“It’s just-” he starts, “It’s got to go well. The blame will fall to us if it doesn’t.”

“That’s the risk we take-”

“Not _us,_ _”_ he interrupts, “the Al Bhed.”

“I see,” Baralai pauses for a hot moment to consider this concern, “I’d be interested to hear Cid’s take on this.”

“Lady Yuna, too.”

“Naturally. I’ll make sure they are here when Rin and Shinra bring it to board.” He pauses, then adds, “After her wedding.”

“Hoping to have Djose fully shut down by then,” he grumbles. It has taken almost six months of on and off visits to have any sense of how to divide his workforce, as Bevelle and Luca had fought over which contracts they’d wanted. Then, somehow having to split individual teams in two, to work at both sites, and then build new teams from that. His engineers are brilliant. At machina. They can sweet talk any bolt into compliance, tenderly caress any mess of a circuitboard into the right configuration, but managing other engineers and technicians, sticking to deadlines, has required much more mentoring and careful forethought than anticipated.

He recalls Rin laughing at him. Chiding him, Rin reminds him that he is blessed with an accessible charisma that alludes most of his peers who learned to machina before they could speak.

“I can’t remember the last time I got to actually work on something.”

“The stadium?” Baralai ventures.

“This close,” he gestures with his fingers, “to building a workshop on Gagazet and locking myself in there for ten years.”

“For someone who hates leadership you strangely excel at it.”

“I don’t know how you haven’t murdered most of your colleagues.” Gippal murmurs.

“It’s not my style.” Baralai laughs.

The next few weeks are a blur. Two weeks supervising the teams in Bevelle, ensuring the flow and direction of the projects are just right. Attending meetings with Rin, he makes his yearly round of networking. They also manage to attract the investment of a younger group of rich Bevellians, socialites after a piece of Luca living, and property developers looking to modernise their style but sorely needing Faction tech to achieve Lucan standard. Two further weeks to travel to Djose, wrap up the projects there and check that the communication systems between Luca, Bevelle and Bikanel were sound. Which they were, and he would video in to every meeting, at least twice daily fielding questions and queries. The majority of the last week involves the travel to Besaid. His friendship with Tidus- shared vision for Spira’s future fostering a close friendship- has progressed. He is ring bearer for the wedding.

Rikku crosses his mind often, usually in the early morning, or late at night. The opportunity to call her eludes him. He tells himself he is too busy. She is too, he imagines. On those evenings when he almost seeks her out on the Comm, the news broadcast is timely with the speculation of a new relationship between her and Graav, the Goers star player. The headlines stretch all the way to Bevelle.

_Party girl Ri Ri locks lips with Goers’ greatest._

Blurry pictures of Rikku in a pale glimmering dress, hair dishevelled and down. The way he’s only seen in her apartment. Sharing a drunken kiss with Graav, then another picture, kissing Bickson. Gippal falters. For the first time, he picks up the trashy paper. A pang of worry- definitely just worry. Concern creeps in at the pictures of her outside wine glass in hand and sunglasses on. Clearly wasted.

Somehow not having her here, where they’d usually laugh at the latest man the magazines had caught her with, there in the bed with him, or the couch. So often were they together he doubts she’s had someone else on the scene this whole time. And even if she does, they hadn’t talked about it. This indefinable thing had no rules- maybe just unspoken ones. Her strategizing, the heads up she always gives, those diamond precise predictions of what the magazines would single her out for, always assuage his misplaced jealousy. But unannounced, the gleeful commentators, the candid photos, drew an envy out of him he wasn’t proud of. Her masterful manipulation of the media beast that stalks her unsettles him. Now he is too far away to see the logic behind it. Then, uncharitably, he thinks she’s been doing the same to him.

These latest pictures. Rikku sloppy drunk. Rikku refused entry to the next club. Rikku making out on camera with other celebrities. This is practically a scandal. According to Rikku’s strict criteria of the image she is trying to curate. Or, so she tells him, constantly. The criteria where her private life is speculation only. No proof. He fumes.

He isn’t sure if he can talk to her in those moments.

So he doesn’t.

She doesn’t call him, either, though, adding fuel to the fire. That fire of suspicion that she’s bored grows, because she is bound to be sooner or later. He knows Rikku _well_. Since, well, _forever_. Her steely romantic aspirations: the soulmate; the many children; the _true love_ she covets- envies- in her peers. Off the table. Because he can’t give her that. Because she hasn’t forgiven him for leaving. At least, it feels like she hasn’t forgiven him for leaving. He doesn’t bring it up and neither does she. In fact, the closest they’ve come to quarreling was just as he left – her misplaced quip about goodbye. The letter he sent her is never discussed, alluded to, hinted at. He starts to wonder if it ever even existed. Rikku wears her heart on her sleeve, where his was enclosed in that wax sealed envelope. Too much time passed with her never seeking him out after the Calm. Rikku’s anger is two years of silent treatment. The slam of the door. That he has inched it open this far again astounds him. Rikku controls this situation.

So he waits for her cue.

It never comes.

He ends up on the same ship to Besaid as Cid. Considerably warmer to him following the stadium opening. The man greets him with an expression of pride, instantly gushing, still, about the stadium. Growing up on Bikanel, those long summers in his house, Cid’s unwanted attempts at fathering him, expecting the same compliance and discipline from him that Rikku and Brother had. Between his mother’s death and his father’s negligence, Gippal was an argumentative, stubborn and difficult teenager. The drinking, partying, dating and acting out was not well tolerated. His relationship with Cid in the lead up to his injury was one of yelling, kicking him out, threatening to ship him back to Luca at the earliest opportunity. The same cycle. Every time. Then, at whatever time of the night, Cid would come find him and drag him back home, on his custom sand buggy. That stony, remorseful silence in response to Cid’s easy forgiveness. He hated Cid’s pity, which his anger always melted to after the fever breaks. And because he doesn’t remember compassion, it can only be pity. Brother’s resentment grew the older they got. Cid’s expectations, tolerance, so different for the two of them.

“Join me for a drink boy!” that familiar boom of his voice. They sit in a small booth of the bar on board. A small part of him reflects at how once Cid admonished his drinking, yet they now settle to it like old buddies.

“Don’t you have your own airship?” Gippal asks, although he hasn’t seen the Fahrenheit himself since Sin fell.

“It’s a hunk of junk!” Cid says sadly, “Between you and Rin keeping them all busy, I can’t get a good mechanic to look at it.”

“Ah, shit,” he swallows his drink, “Sorry.”

“I want to make more.”

“More?”

“Airships.”

“It is on my list somewhere, too,” Gippal grumbles.

“If you can get someone out to work on the Fahrenheit we can start there.”

“Deal.” Gippal says, aware of how valuable unfettered access to one of the only airships in Spira is. This is a far better use of their time than chasing pyreflies around underground.

“I’m too old to be tinkering with things I don’t understand.”

Gippal scoffs at this. Cid knows more about machina than he likely ever will. Admittedly, the weapon kind of machina.

And, that, is how the Al Bhed make deals. Done before they even finish their first beer. Cid reminisces about Home, though his ambition to rebuild, after he himself blew it to smithereens, has faded with time. The Al Bhed population settled mainly in Luca, Kilika and small villages in and around the Moonflow. They had been quick to redefine Home on their own terms. Sadly, Cid remains nomadic, the airship more of a curse than a blessing.

“You see a lot of that daughter of mine?” Cid asks casually.

Gippal swallows another sip of his beer, carefully.

“A bit.”

“She doing okay?” he asks, “She got herself a boyfriend?”

“I, uh,” he clears his throat nervously. Cid clearly doesn’t watch the broadcasts, “Don’t think so.”

“I’ll have to give her a piece of my mind.” Cid grumbles, then mutters something about kids these days. And Gippal laughs.

“We’re not all bad.” He says.

“Aha! Now you want me to treat you like a kid,” Cid guffaws, “how things change!”

They drink in to the early hours, talking shop, mutually youthful in their excitement. They disembark, matching in sunglasses, mutually hungover onto Besaid’s promenade, bristling at Tidus’ shit-eating grin when he sees the sorry state they’re in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ehehehehehe. Hi again *hides*  
> Well I hate editing, and filler chapters. But I'm uploading two. Don't hate me.  
> Thanks for the love.


	7. Chapter 7

The next time they are together is on Besaid, two nights before the wedding. More than two months later. Rikku is already there; an extended trip to Besaid’s spa to calm the bride’s nerves, a drawn-out bachelorette party. They are hosting a small rehearsal dinner, less rehearsal and more quiet catch up. The spa’s private beach sequesters them from the rest of the island. There is a long table set up there, torches plunged deep into the sand. Wakka and Lulu towards the head of the table with the bride and groom. Vidina in a booster chair, daydreaming, as Wakka tries to focus his attention on the dinner plate in front of them. Paine, one of the bridesmaids, side by side with Nooj. Cid and Brother opposite them. The remaining bridesmaid, Rikku, and groomsman, Gippal sit opposite one another at the end of the table.

In Luca they have a kind of language between them. She would predict the course of night by how he greeted her. _Cid_ _’s girl_ when they are in heavy company, at public events and the highest risk of cameras, and usually they would get too drunk and spend the night laughing, dancing, friends extricating them from each other and getting them home safe at the close of the night. _Princess_ when there was the space for him to get close to her, and purr it privately into her ear, enrage her and draw away to kiss her once on each cheek. Those were the inevitable nights, where the alcohol didn’t go down well, and they would run into one another in the corridor, and she would find herself kissing him, and then wildly excusing herself early, after she sees him leave first. On _princess_ nights, he would be waiting outside her door, and she’d tug him in behind her, trying not to fall over Lana on the way to the bedroom.

The _Rikku_ nights were the rarest, but most unpredictable. She can never quite tell if he wants her on these nights. Sometimes, these were the drunkest, tumbling out of clubs together, drunken mutual support; Rikku’s wine glass still in her hand; Gippal’s jacket, always, around her shoulders. And this is how they would get away with those nights; Brother and Buddy. On these nights the magazines could buy that they were these party animal childhood friends, orbiting around one another simply out of habit. Sometimes the party continues on the Celsius; they collapse in separate beds. Other times, she ends up back in his office- he insists this is his apartment- and the next morning she shamefully slinks past a smirking Sarra when her taxi arrives.

Sometimes _Rikku_ nights are spent in their entirety talking, slowly progressing through one bottle of wine. They usually were at hers, or small industry dinner parties. Even the occasional pretentious charity galas where they would dance with their rusty childhood ballroom to the mediocre band. The nights they’d laugh the hardest, and actually remember their conversations the next morning. On these nights, he kisses her first after repeating her name, again and again, like he can scarcely believe she is still there. The nights where things are most tender. Slow, sensual kisses when they are back home, at hers, the agonising pace with which he unwraps her from her lingerie. Sometimes, though, he doesn’t kiss her; instead untangles her hair with his fingers as she sleeps on his chest. Sometimes he tells her horrific things about the Crimson Squad; sometimes she cries about the fall of Home. These nights they don’t sleep until the dawn. Sarra’s polite Commsphere call around 11am would inevitably come, pull him back to the office. Time only for a quick, stilted goodbye.

Tonight, she is the last to sit down at the table, late. The flickering orange glow of the torches dances off the fruit and flowers arranged in the middle of the table. She directs a quick apology towards the end of the table. She seats herself and meets his eye- playful smirk already there.

“Rikku.” he says.

“Gippal.” She finds a catty slant to the way she delivers it.

She hates how he’s turned her name into a game. Maybe he doesn’t realise; maybe this is his way of making her work for it. Maybe it’s because Cid is within ear shot. Maybe he misses the feel of her fingers in his hair. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. He infuriates her. That painfully slow way he is pouring her wine, which she hasn’t asked him to do. His widening smile and her deepening scowl. She stops herself and pushes it away with her own smile. She doesn’t let him break eye contact when he finally looks up. She takes that first sip, rolls the dice of how this evening is going to go.

“Earth to Rikku!”

Yuna is yelling at her from the end of the table.

“Sorry, Yunie.”

“You and your wine.” Gippal murmurs. She glares at him because he loves to flirt with her like this. Cid and Brother distracted by Nooj, so frustratingly within earshot of what he’s saying to her.

Yuna summons her to the end of the table for a photo with some static camera Gippal had given Paine for her last birthday. Yuna directs Tidus to take their picture. YRP reunited. They are giggling, Yuna and Rikku, and Paine is despairing at the bubbling excitement, betraying herself with a secret smile. When she settles back in to her own chair, Gippal and Brother are arguing about Blitzball. Gippal is pulling at the collar of his linen shirt, and the glimpse of his collarbone in the torchlight distracts her. He doesn’t even look up at her, slides another full wine glass over to her, brazenly lets his fingers linger there against hers. She is lucky it is so warm; she gets away with the flush on her cheeks. She wants to throw her wine over him. He hasn’t seen or heard from him for two months. She wants to grab the front of his shirt and kiss him fiercely over the flowers, then walk away laughing as her father skins him alive.

“You’re quiet, sweetie.” Cid suddenly turns to her. His voice always has the accidental volume of a startled Shoopuf. She feels Gippal and Brother looking at her. She slides her eyes blankly past Gippal to smile sweetly at her father.

“I’m just so excited for Yunie and Tidus,” she says. This spurs Cid into action. He declares the need for a toast. Despite how heavy-handed his enthusiasm often is, he manages a rallying, sympathetic and practically hilarious monologue about how much he hated Tidus when he first met him, throwing him across the bridge of the Fahrenheit- this she had forgotten and it pulls a genuine laugh from her- and now how he loves him for saving her. The world, too, but Yuna, more importantly.

“No hope of this one here getting married anytime soon,” he finishes, pointing towards Rikku out of nowhere. Gippal almost chokes with laughter on his wine. Rikku fumes.

“Hey!” she yells. She kicks Gippal under the table and he spills wine on his shirt.

“Shit, princess, watch it!”

“Princess? Ha!” Cid booms, and maybe its the wine or his sentimentality, but he laughs, and soon the whole table follows. Rikku smiles despite herself, although deeply embarrassed. Gippal grumpily finishes his glass of wine. She childishly sticks her tongue out at him. The rest of the meal passes quickly as the wine works its magic. Cid and Brother leave the table to smoke, then settle afterwards at the bar. Tidus and Nooj join them, as Yuna and Paine continue their conversation. Yuna has collected flowers from the centrepiece, is weaving them together. With her family out of earshot;

“Busy few weeks?” she asks casually. He is pouring the rest of the bottle out between them.

“It was constant,” he says, avoiding her eyes.

“Lana misses you.” Rikku says, as close to chiding him as she will ever get.

“Sure Graav has been keeping you both busy.” The tone he delivers this in is very dry, measured.

“What do you mean?” she glares at him.

“You know, your new squeeze.”

“He is not my new- ” she starts.

Yuna interrupts her by sliding tipsily into the seat next to her. She delicately places a crown of flowers into her hands; she’s been weaving it throughout dessert and drinks.

“A crown for Princess Rikku!” she declares airily, then a tipsy giggle.

“Minus ten respect points for that nickname,” Paine says, sliding into the seat next to Gippal, and a sharp elbow to his side.

“Ugh.” Gippal places his face down on his arms.

“It’s just a childhood nickname.” Rikku finds herself defending him.

“From when you _made quite the couple_?” Yuna stage whispers, sipping from her cocktail.

“Someone kill me,” Gippal moans.

“Oh, Gippal’s never had a girlfriend. Ever.” Rikku says, bitchily. She is unsure if the burn in her cheeks is the wine, or simmering rage.

“Aw, how come?” Yuna asks, then suddenly suspicious, “ooh, you’re a _player_ , I remember now.”

“A ladies’ man.” Paine confirms, smugly.

“You three are the worst.”

“Stay away from the princess!” Yuna fake scolds him in an imitative elderly voice. The three of them collapse into giggles, even Paine, the generous amount of wine and cocktails catching up to them. Yuna is trying to pull Rikku away to dance by the bonfire that’s been lit closer to the shore.

“As soon as I’ve finished my wine, promise.” She says, and stays seated with Gippal, who is quiet and long suffering during their giggly conversation.

“What is your problem?” she hisses.

“Me?” he retorts, looking at her with such utter disbelief.

“I don’t see you for two months, and you’re pissed at me for hanging out with someone other than you.” She fumes, “You know, it’s actually quite nice, not having to dodge the fucking cameras every ten minutes because you don’t like them.”

She senses things escalating, and wishes she could take it back.

“ _I_ don’t like them?” he whispers frantically.

“Yes, you!” Rikku says, simmering with frustration.

“You’re the one who insists we always sneak around in the fucking dark, princess.”

“I’m not interested in making the headlines as one of your many _conquests_ , Gippal!”

“I wasn’t even in the headlines until you came along!” he snaps, and then quiets himself, he almost says something then but stops himself. This will-they-won’t-they obsession the magazines have has translated in to Gippal on camera, every new woman he sleeps with now well documented for all of Spira to see. Rikku’s idea to create a perfect friendship narrative. To throw them off the scent.

“You don’t get to be territorial about me,” she is gulping the rest of her wine down then to stave off the ridiculous tears that are forming, “Mr I’m-too-busy-for-a-relationship. Fuck you.”

She throws the flower crown at him, aggressively banging her wine glass down on the table. He throws his hands up and doesn’t follow as she trudges off towards the small jetty. He knocks the rest of his wine back and starts the walk up to the bar, fumbling to light a cigarette. Blind in frustration, he walks into Tidus, who steadies him with a strong hand on his chest.

“Everything okay?” he says, uneasy concern as his gaze follows after Rikku.

“Yeah, sure,” he murmurs.

“Think you best go-” Tidus hesitates, “sort that out, don’t you?”

He tries to look nonplussed and shrug. Tidus steers him round, pushes him in her general direction.

“Go kiss and make up.”

“It’s not like that.” He says defensively.

“Just go before I kick your ass!”

Rikku crackles, standing taut and glaring murderously over the waves. Away from the globe of bonfire light and the satellite of torches, she is practically invisible. Mastering her frustrated tears, she breathes in and out. Count to ten, then walk back to the party. She feels his presence prickling there at the edge of her consciousness, wishes she isn’t such a slave to his attention, so attuned to where, when, what he is all the time. A swift gust of sea air awakens a shiver across her shoulders. Frizzy from the sun and sea water, her hair is a masterless mess this evening; her lips are chapped from letting the salt dry there in the afternoon sun. She is always closing her eyes; seeing herself instead on Bikanel, that confusing morning, staring dumbfounded out over the ocean, when he’d taken a different ship to theirs, no warning, and how hard she’d cried.

“Rikku.”

Soft, tentative, as gentle as the breeze, his voice breaks her silence. She stiffens, pulling her arms closer to her chest. She smells the smoke.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that.” She says quietly, turning to him.

“Do what?” she gestures at the cigarette, “Because it’s bad for me, or because I’m doing it without you?”

“Both,” she mutters, and turns to face the sea again.

She can’t help but lean back into him as he wraps her in an embrace from behind, murmurs an apology, presses a kiss to her neck. She melts like butter then. They both smell like wine; Rikku’s hair like strawberry; his breath ashy, familiar. He is tipsy tender right now, starting to sway them both as the music from the bonfire swells upwind from the beach.

“You can’t just disappear like that, you know.” She says, not that easy. She links their fingers, squeezes punishingly.

“I know,” he says, “come and dance.”

“And you know better than to believe-”

He turns her head to him, kisses her deeply. The swoop and thrill of desire that floods into her, and she realises how much she has been aching for his touch. Speechless, then.

“I was jealous,” he admits, pressing his lips into her neck, and she is forming the retort on her lips then, “and I know I have no right.”

“No, you don’t,” she agrees.

“I told you,” he murmurs, “this is gonna fuck us up.”

“Not if we don’t let it,” she whispers.

“Can we start over?” he asks. He feels her nod, and spins her round into a platonic embrace. The heavy kind, both his arms over her shoulders, and crushing her to him. Sorry, again.

“Fine,” she releases her anger then. And she is about to tell him, about moving to Bevelle, but this shift in affection silences her.

“Will you dance with me,” and he’s leading her back to the party, and she can’t even be angry when he follows with, “princess?”

More wine, and the company of trusted friends. Gippal and Rikku dance the night away as fiercely as the rest of them, spinning. Yuna begs them to dance in hold- the way they used to as children- and the laughter at Rikku’s refusal to be led overtakes most of them. They argue like old lovers; Rikku authoritative, whilst slurring, trying to correct his posture. She shrieks when he is upending her into a romantic dip, then tries to spin her but in her stubborn refusal to follow they both crumple entangled on to the sand. Hilarious entertainment to their friends. As the fire dies, the night closes quietly around them. Cid retiring first. Then Lulu and Wakka carrying Vidina to bed. Tidus and Yuna enmeshed and murmuring endlessly. They are the last two couples left on the beach.

They leave the soon-to-be wed behind. Gippal leads her, a flimsy excuse that he’s escorting her to her small chalet. She is giddily drunk, pulls him in to sway with her to an imaginary song, before she unlocks her door. Selfishly, her hands cupping his face, as something serious and sad settles on to his face. Sweet, platonic kiss on his lips, practically chaste, and he is quite drunk too. He is running his hand over her thigh, pushing it under the loose crocheted dress that covers her bikini, lifting her leg up on to him, and she follows the routine with ease. He hitches her up on to him, and she kisses him again and again and again, in the dark, on her doorstep, back pressing tightly into the door. Choppy breathing, beautiful harmony, to the rhythmic sigh of the waves that is deafening, back and forth.

“I missed you,” he breathes.

“Funny way of showing it,” she teases.

He snatches her key from her, and they stumble into her room. Princess-night deja vu; poorly executed passion. Just another clumsy night. Then, in the muted lamplight of her room, sobriety draws nearer, and he adopts that slow, reverential pace. The gradual inch by inch undressing of her, covetous regard in his eyes, and the shy, grateful pressure of his fingers, tracing that invisible tattoo of where he’s been again and again over her thighs, her stomach, her breasts, her neck. Kisses her name into her neck, into her lips. Naked and warm in the tropical air, he worships her, and she receives his tithes, tangling and rolling atop the blankets, until they are both done. They settle up to their waists under the thin linen, still entangled, and fall asleep embracing.

* * *

He knows by now that she is a morning person. She learns the timing of his morning-afters- coffee on the bedside table always that perfect ready-to-drink temperature. Rikku, hands to heart centre, calm on her balcony as he throws his shirt and tie on and runs out the door, late as normal. He wakes up and blinks the sun away and realises with some relief, this is not a normal work day. Rikku sits cross-legged next to him, glowing in that radiant post shower way she does, long damp hair a curtain around her own morning cup of coffee. He collapses one hand on to her knee.

“What time is it?” he mumbles, barely audible as he rubs sleep off his face.

“Ten am.” she says brightly. He groans and rolls over until he is face down, she prods him in his side, “Get up! We have babysitting duties.”

She is referring, not to Vidina, but rather the bride and groom, who by ritual were to be separated the day before the wedding. He dresses then, Rikku following him out of her room, walking away to the spa, and he prays that no one sees him on the way back to his room. No such luck: Tidus leans against the door to his room and laughs as soon as he sees him.

“Made up then, did you?” Tidus is smiling. Gippal can’t look at him. He is at a loss. He is in last night’s clothes. There is no other logical explanation. “I came to get you. We’re starting earlier than planned.”

“Yeah, sure, just give me a few minutes.”

Gippal showers and changes quickly, swimming trunks and white cotton t shirt. Today a tamer encore to the bachelor party they’d thrown him in Luca. This time though, slow day drinks and casual Blitz games, on the beach. Yuna and her small posse of bridesmaids remain tucked away for most of the day in the spa. A buffet style lunch is set up, and the remaining wedding guests start to filter in, via Celsius and ship. Champagne is flowing. The bridal party escape their seclusion for an hour to greet the guests. Tidus and Yuna part with a passionate kiss as they all cheer at this last contact before the big day.

Later in the evening, the sun sets as he enjoys a cigar away from the rest of the party. Tidus joins them, for the view, not the cigar.

“You know,” he starts, and Gippal’s heart sinks, here it comes, “it’s kinda obvious now I think about it.”

“What is?” maybe he can play dumb.

“Yuna said you guys were childhood sweethearts, or something.”

Gippal groans then- he was joking when he said that, and the High Summoner wouldn’t let it go.

“Childhood friend,” he corrects him, and is telling him then about the long summers at Home, lodging with Rikku and Brother- Buddy a constant fixture, too. Then losing touch due to Sin, the Crimson Squad. In fact, all the things he’s told him before but previously the Rikku parts missed out; redacted. Tidus is smiling into his beer, listening intently.

“You guys don’t speak much in Al Bhed?” he asks.

“I helped her learn Spiran, when we were, like, seven. Just habit, I guess. Look, Rikku is pretty private about- this-” Tidus laughs, “- no, honestly, she doesn’t want anyone to know.”

“It was _Rikku_ _’s idea_ for this to be a secret _?_ _”_ he eyes Gippal suspiciously.

“It gets complicated-” he holds his hands up when Tidus scoffs, “her words, man. The cameras, and all that.”

“You know every person on this beach right now will kill you if you hurt her.”

“Noted.”

* * *

The suite they spend the day in is luxurious. A small private pool on a vast balcony, plush cabanas and sun loungers and a view over the ocean that is unparalleled. Inside the penthouse size interior is a large jacuzzi, and a small team of beauty assistants and massage therapists. The spend the day, settling Yuna’s nerves with massage, face masks, and an abundant supply of champagne and sweet tropical cocktails. They break away from this hidden paradise to have lunch with the majority of the guests that have arrived from all over Spira. Tidus and Yuna make the most of those last unwed moments.

“Are you excited to be relocating to Bevelle?” Yuna asks her. Her face is covered in a dark green paste, and she is struggling to gracefully sip from her glass without smearing it.

“I think it’s going to be different,” she says, "Fun different."

“I think it’s a good idea to increase the visibility of the Al Bhed. I know Baralai is trying his hardest, but their media is really outdated, nothing like Luca.” Yuna says. She spends more time there than in Luca. During Blitz season, especially, she leans into the role of advisor. Her counsel highly valued. The Youth League and New Yevon meet monthly, or at least the representatives of both. As Spira progresses technologically, these are attempts at a unified approach, an equitable division of the work the Machine Faction is offering.

“Just watch yourself,” Paine says over her champagne glass.

The rest of the day passes swiftly. Girly bonding, tipsy giggling, emotional outbursts. They retire to bed early, Yuna’s excitement palpable. Lulu and Paine promise to wake them in a timely fashion.

* * *

The private beach is transformed overnight. A pale blue carpet stretches down towards the shore towards a woven white arch, twisted with pastel pink and blue chiffon. Enchanted torches ablaze with white flames, sink symmetrically into the sand along the aisle. They crackle in the gentle breeze. Two large stone vases bracket the archway; tropical flowers, foliage, pampas grass bursting forth and over. Delicate wicker white chairs face the focus of the event, each with either pink or blue chiffon bows that dance lazily in the breeze. The guests are seated already. Tidus bobs nervously from foot to foot, as Wakka claps him on the back reassuringly. The pangs of harp strings burst from the back of the viewing area.

The bridal procession emerge. Bridesmaids- Paine, then Rikku, then Lulu, uniform in pale blue chiffon, simple floaty layers, plunging neckline that gathers into a halter, delicate long bow to line their backs. Pretty, petite bouquets of white roses, pink lilies, cream pampas anchored between their hands.

Then, resplendant, the bride.

Cid escorts Yuna. Shrouded in the faintest veil that shimmers in the brilliant sun, Yuna’s dress is pure white silk, cinched to her sillhouette. Thin straps over her shoulders and the silk collects in a deep, slight cowl that dips slightly between her breasts. The silk gathers delicately at the lowest point of her spine, and the train flows from there, rolling over the sand like the sea on to the shore. A large bouquet of cream, pink, white tied with blue ribbon. Long brown hair teased into voluminous romantic curls, that cascade over her shoulders, bouncing on the stark bareness of her back. Cid’s cream linen tuxedo is a mere canvas to her masterpiece.

Ever the crybaby, Tidus’ cheeks are wet as he observes that slow walk; his future wife floats closer. She instantly slips her hand into his and squeezes, a single tear escaping her. The veil flutters in the breeze as he lifts it away from her. Yuna passes her bouquet to Lulu. An elder stands, stunted, in the arch and leads the ceremony. Sweet exchange of vows- that eternal, rule-defying love, redefining the very notion of existence, of obtaining a dream- words that barely echo the pain, and resolve, and depth of the love that has led to this.

“I do.” They both say.

They kiss joyfully on their cue. Yuna throws her arms around his neck and Tidus lifts her from the ground. They spin once gleefully. Then, hand in hand, she pulls him along behind her, back up the beach to the reception. The guests wander back to the spa, the buzz of touched chatter bubbling loudly between them. The bridesmaids gather some of the flowers around the edge of the ceremony and carry them back inside. Paine politely reminds the newlyweds that it’s picture time and they are pulled away from one another’s gravity for an hour of posing, and arrangements with the bridal party, then small groups of guests. The champagne flows freely, the painstaking arrangement of photos flying by smoothly and quickly.

The spa’s large dining hall, in the style of modern Spira, is a vast minimalistic space- a large octagonal room dotted with large circular tables. Blue chiffon accents the furniture. Above each table hangs large clear fishbowls that overflow with flowers and foliage in the style of the bridal bouquet. Small silk pouches stitched with the guests names serve as place holders. Each embroidered pouch encloses a minisphere capable of catching a limited number of still images. Pale gold muted cutlery and tall crystal glasses. The middle of each table houses large gold receptacles lined with ice, upon which nestle magnums of champagne and multiple bottles of white wine. The rearmost three facets of the room form the bar and hide the kitchen from view. The remaining five sides of the grand room are glittering paned windows that also function as doors, concertinaing on to the shift, sound, smell of the sea air. The rhythmic play of the waves on the shore serves itself up, a natural soundtrack. The top of the room, right of the bar, the top table, those coveted wedding party seats. The other tables occupy the centre of the room. The dancefloor, expectant of later festivity lies behind the tables. Across the threshold of the sliding glass doors, a sunbleached pale wood deck, unfettered views of the endless ocean that had brought Tidus here to start with.

To Yuna’s right: Cid, Lulu, Rikku, Brother. To Tidus’ left: Wakka, Vidina, Paine, Gippal. Rikku chances a couple of glances Paine’s way during the meal, which passes as quickly as they down that first bottle of champagne. Paine’s face a mask of composure but Rikku can tell from the set of her shoulders she is close to exploding between the childish neediness of Vidina, and Gippal’s incessant joking chatter. Things settle and Wakka delivers a speech of such hilarity that even he seems surprised at himself. Rikku even hears Lulu laugh quietly, the noise breaking the barrier of that soft half smile that settles upon her face whenever Wakka speaks. Then the toast to the happy couple. Some of the formality shatters as Tidus and Yuna wander the tables to mingle with their guests.

“I’ll give you fifty respect points if you swap seats with me,” comes Paine’s whispered plea in her ear.

“Things are bad if you’d prefer to sit next to Brother.” She says drily. She knocks the rest of her fizz back, then wanders over the Paine’s seat. Gippal is nursing a champagne flute, is playing catch with Vidina- the head of rose tossed between them. Vidina giggles ridiculously every time Gippal feigns a clumsy fumble. Lulu has hopped up a few seats to talk secretly with Wakka, her mouth incredibly close to his ear, and a pink tinge to her cheeks that Rikku has never seen there before.

“Paine said you need assistance getting through all this,” she pats the sweating bottles in front of them.

“Auntie Rikkoo” Vidina says shyly. She lets him climb on to her lap and he perches there.

“Hey, you stole my friend.” Gippal says, going to clink his glass with hers, before realising hers is empty. He pours for the both of them. Rikku stretches with some effort, Vidina anchoring her to her chair. She snatches up one of the small bouquets and hands it to Vidina. His face lights up and he starts to pull the petals from it slowly.

“Glad you’ve finally met someone as mature as you,” she teases, sticking her tongue out at him, some of Vidina’s childish glee infusing her.

“You’re savage today.” He acts hurt, “You always get this way when you’re all dolled up.”

“Dolled up? Are you forty?” she teases. Instead of a comeback, she jolts with pleasure as he laughs, tipsy already.

“Let’s play a game,” He says. She thinks he’s aiming this at Vidina, but he leans closer to her, bumps her shoulder. He points at Shelinda and Vincent, “we take it in turns: pick two people from each table who you reckon are gonna bang at the end of the night.”

“What!”

“Look at those two,” he points to Vincent, whispering something in Shelinda’s ear, as she squirms slightly and a flush creeps up her cheeks.

“Fine,” she says, “Me first.”

She turns to him, and points discreetly over her shoulder at Lulu and Wakka. He rolls his eyes at her.

“Too easy.”

“I wanna win. What am I winning?”

“The best sex of your life,” he purrs, whispering it in Al Bhed, children in earshot and all that.

“Gippal!” she slaps him playfully on his arm, and he looks around the room.

“Okay Sarra and-” he spends a long moment considering, “Calli.”

“You’re good at this,” her eyes sparkle with secrecy, “I thought knowing all the gossip would give me an advantage.”

Vidina chooses this moment to become restless, tears collecting the in the corner of his eyes.

“Sweetie, what’s wrong?” she soothes, and he blubs that he needs a wee-wee as he clamps around her neck. She starts to stand.

“I’ve got this, ya?” Wakka extricates Vidina from her grip, squeezing Rikku’s shoulder warmly. Lulu slides into the seat next to them, and is stretching her hand towards Gippal. They have definitely met before, very fleetingly, usually in the whirlwind of a highly publicised event.

“What are you two whispering about?” she asks, her usual composure upon them.

“Ah,” Gippal says nervously, “nothing, really.”

“We’re trying to guess who’s gonna get lucky tonight!” Rikku chirps, and quickly explains the rules. Gippal shifts in his seat and thinks he is withering away when Lulu settles her discerning gaze upon him.

“Interesting,” she states. Lulu takes the minutest sip from her glass, appraising the pair of them closely. Without even blinking, she turns and points at Elma and Clasko, laughing and blushing at one another respectively.

“Ooh, yes!” Rikku says, then, pointing directly at the newly married couple, “Easy!”

“Refill, please, Gippal.” Lulu drily commands. Rikku smirks. Gippal complies, no jest, no protest, just- _of course._ Rikku giggles at his discomfort.

“You’re acting strange.” She pokes him in the ribs, and he yells as he almost drops the bottle.

“Watch it, princess.”

Lulu smiles then and tells him to relax. The game continues- more and more ridiculous proposals of couples. Rikku almost pushes him out of his chair when he suggests Leblanc and Cid- e _w!_

“Okay, then, last one,” Lulu sighs, spotting Wakka bouncing a restless Vidina on his hip. Lulu downs the champagne remaining in her glass. She makes a show of pondering, then gestures between the two of them.

Maybe the alcohol has weakened their resolve, but neither of them muster the usual amusing rebuttal to the suspicions. Instead a slow flush rises steadily over the pair of them.

“Have fun, you two.” Lulu says, swiftly gathering herself up before gliding away to collect her flustered husband- her agitated child- and her son.

“Well, shit,” Gippal groans, he collapses his head on to his hands.

“Oh, don’t worry, that was Lulu practically giving you permission to marry-” she glances quickly at him as she catches herself. He hasn’t noticed.

“Why do all your female friends hate me?” he moans.

“If Lulu hated you, you would know it.”

“Is there anyone that doesn’t know at this point?” He grumbles. She shoots him an incredulous look.

“Who? Lulu. Literally the most discreet person I know. Oh and Paine…” he trails off when he looks at her incredulously, “she guessed!”

“Tidus saw me walking back from your room yesterday.”

“Okay, we’re screwed then.” She laughs though and knocks her alcohol back. “Is it really that bad, if our friends know that we have a- whatever this is?”

“Easy for you to say. You know half the people in this room will murder me-”

“I warned you.” She says. Something somber settles on her face. Then she looks away.

“I should have called. Princess.” He murmurs. She notices that she is _princess_ tonight, and it slightly bothers her that he doesn’t even try to flirt anymore, seduces her instead with that simple word. Under the table his hand squeezes her thigh.

“Well, work is important,” she says, “Forgiven.”

“I wanna spend more time together,” he starts, sitting again, arm round her shoulder, clumsy kiss to her temple, “when we’re back home. No more Djose.”

“Home?”

“Luca.” He gestures with his free hand, whilst topping up their glasses.

“Gippal, about-”

The room erupts in activity, Cid’s voice commanding the attention of all the guests. Cake cutting. They join the other guests clamouring round as the photographer snaps them pre-emptively holding the knife, ready for it sink into the tiered chocolate cake. Tidus licks a dollop of frosting off Yuna’s finger. They are parted for the next couple of hours, the hype of the party building in anticipation for the first dance.

Yuna and Tidus collect together on the dancefloor. Calli takes to the small stage. Golden cocktail dress, her trademark glossy long high ponytail. The piano notes begin to ring out, the pang of harpstrings swelling in the room. The lights dim, only torchlight, the warm orange glow, drawing all eyes to the centre of the room.

“ _The sun is setting, and you_ _’re right here by my side_ ,” Calli sings, and Yuna and Tidus begin to sway. He holds her waist, and her hands settle tenderly on his cheeks. Inaudibly, he whispers sweetly to her.

“ _Cause I never knew, I never knew_ ,” Calli’s gentle, powerful voice carrying delicately over the music, “ _I could hold moonlight in my hands, til the night I held you._ ”

As the dance is winding up, the restlessness of the guests to partake in dancing builds. Other couples begin to filter on to the dancefloor. Rikku glances around, manages to miss Gippal hooking his hand into the bend of her elbow. He pulls her on to the dancefloor with him, shushing her protests, with the authoritative placement of his hand on her back.

“Wanna dance?” he asks, after the fact.

“Do I have a choice?” she grumbles, but leans in to his touch anyhow.

“I’m hard to resist.”

The next song is similarly romantic, slow. She can’t hear the lyrics as she frantically tries to avoid catching his eye. This close proximity, so familiar, but unsettling this brazen. So blatantly, innocently, in plain sight, and perhaps the most romantic thing they’ve done together. She sags with relief when the next song is more jovial, upbeat. They break away from one another, the group of them dancing grows, and the night pulls them away from one another once again. She is dancing, holding hands with Yuna, half jump, half sway to Lucan pop. She is panting, giggling, at the end of the song. A slight heave to her chest, redness builds in her cheeks, and it is time for a break.

She searches the room, and doesn’t see him under the muted nightlife lighting. Then she catches Brother and Buddy walking back inside. The smoking area. She crosses that non-existent barrier, inside to outside. Gippal is leaning over the railing of the decking, directing his gaze at the ocean. She sees the pinprick orange glow of his cigarette as he rests his hand down on the beam.

“Hey you.” She says. The ocean looks impenetrably deep, turbulently dark in the moonlight. The brush of the waves against the shore is an eerie sound- it draws her attention outward. She shivers.

“Hey.” He states. Quiet. Closed.

She slides up close to him, laces two fingers around the cigarette and steals it from him. She releases a messy cloud of smoke, the breeze blows this back into her eyes.

“When do you go?” he asks, uninterested.

She pauses, cigarette half way to her lips. Away from the torchlight, some ethereal barrier between the two of them out here, and the main activity of the wedding, her dress glows almost white, illuminated, ghostly, in the moonlight. Of course he now knows, someone has told him, why wouldn’t they? It isn’t supposed to be a secret. She formulates her response. He fills the stretching silence.

“Were you gonna say anything?” he asks. He reclaims the cigarette. He flicks the lengthening crust of ash over the barrier into the sand, eyes reverently to the shore. “Or were you just gonna disappear?”

“I-” and it sounds pathetic in the air between them, “I was waiting for the right time.”

“You’re so impulsive.” He mutters. He won’t look at her. She is furious.

“What is that even supposed to mean?” she says. He makes no effort to answer “You would know if you’d been here. I-”

“Oh, I see,” he shrugs. “You’re moving to Bevelle to get back at me. Mature.”

“You’re the one who hates goodbyes.” Her tone is acidic. He glares at her, sombre slant to his mouth, brow furrowed. She knows. He knows. What she is getting at. This large unacknowledged teenage betrayal of his that she neither talks about nor lets go. Complicated, messy. Don’t overthink it, she insists, on the countless times she pushes a finger to his lips when he tries to start the conversation. The sex. The fooling around. This intoxicating command she now has over him- that broken part of him that is not allowed to say sorry. The physicality works for her when it is nothing. The physicality works for him because he convinces himself she is his in those brief lustful moments where she holds him in her spotlight.

It works because it’s just fun, right? It has no capacity to hurt them, right? Memories are painful, but that’s all they are, right?

“Rikku,” his resolve melts. He pushes himself away from the railing slightly, glances at the floor, “I don’t wanna fight with you.”

“Look,” she starts, “I’m going to set up a make up label. Six months. Luca isn’t going to sink to the bottom of the ocean in that time.”

She walks a few steps away, pacing then with some nervousness, and spills the story. Her contract ending. The manufacturers. How she wasn't planning to move, but it would be easier. The opportunity. Rin’s plea to raise the public profile of the Al Bhed in Bevelle. She doesn’t want to model forever. He nods. It’s a good idea. Logically. He knows she can handle it, as impervious as she is to the media attention she attracts, with her refusal to read anything about herself. Then, she makes him promise to come back in and dance. Then, as she turns to walk back in. Irrational. He grabs her hand. She turns, bemused.

“Don’t.” He says, not meeting her eyes.

“I’ve already arrange-”

“Stay in Luca.”

“What,” she closes her eyes, pulls away, looks at her hands as though burned, “What are you asking me?”

“I-” he pauses, as though assessing what she wants him to say, then “I don’t know. We were having fun. I want it to continue. What do you want me to say?”

“I can’t,” she says, cautiously, eyes never leaving his face, gesturing, “do it, like this, anymore.”

She stops with a shaky breath. She watches the shift from vulnerable to poise. She is too stubborn. But he should know what she's getting at. He draws himself up. She smiles, laughs at some one-sided joke. His obstinacy. Then, she gathers both of his hands in hers, kissing him chastely on his lips. A minute passes, and he won’t look at her. This is how she knows how pissed off he is. She sighs and draws herself up.

“Forget it,” she says, “Come back inside.”

The difference in the hold teenage Rikku and young woman Rikku has over him catches him off guard. She is princess, tonight, after all, and he caves when she flexes her authority. He wants her, as always. This is the last time for a while. The olive branch of her hand is waiting, and the smouldering eye contact signals that she knows this, too. Guiding him back onto the dancefloor is a small reparation for the missed goodbyes.

“Wait.”

Moonlight. Her hair glows silver. He feels the bumps of chill on her arms when he places his hand there. Out here in the dark, this moment, before they walk back into the festivity, this is the moment of farewell. The private one, the one they will remember, not too drunk yet. The music swells like the tide and he pulls her in to dance. Her thumb lightly caresses the pale blue flower wilting on his lapel- the corsage steadily battered from dancing and Vidina earlier.

“You can visit me.” She says shyly.

“I’ll try.” He mutters.

“See. You’re not even gonna notice I’m gone.”

“Might miss Lana more,” he jokes, and she stands on his foot on purpose as they sway in the breeze.

“I’m gonna train her to attack you on sight.” she counters. He laughs.

“You know, the cameras caught you and that-” the next word with some distaste, “Blitzer kissing, right?”

She flushes to her hairline.

“I didn’t,” she confesses, “you know me, I don’t check the gossip.”

“I actually haven’t,” he swallows. There is comfort between them but he realises with a jolt that they are not often in the business of being candid, “I haven’t actually made any _conquests_ the whole time we've been-”

“I know,” she pouts, cheeks still warm, “but neither have I! I was wasted. I barely remember. Leblanc dragged me home before I could embarrass myself anymore. I told you not to-”

“I wanted to see your face.”

“Um, I’m on the Commsphere network, dummy.”

“Me too, darling.”

“You’re infuriating.”

“You love it.”

“Enough of this,” she starts to pull him back towards the venue.

Swiftly, he’s spinning her back to him. A swoon inducing kiss, bruising in its intensity. Dizzy, she traces her thumb across his lips, magnetised to him helplessly.

“Don’t leave here without me.” He murmurs, and strides past her back to the light, leaving her shivering in the gentle breeze.

The night ends. She wears his jacket around her shoulders. They are two of the last standing. His sleeves rolled up from the hot work of dancing, arms rippling in the relative chill descending on the beach. Rikku’s new trademark, hovering at the outside edges of the party, illegally touting a wine glass. She is playing with her wedding favour. He is leaning, back to the ocean, on the railing, watching her. Last shot. Out here in the dark the sphere emanates its own burst of light to help capture the images. She aims it at him. Cigarette between his lips, hair limp, fuzzy, falling forward from those spikes. He fixes her with a nonchalant eye, smirks anyhow. At some point the top three buttons of his shirt have popped open, and the tendrils of the bow tie peeks from behind the gaping collar. At some point, he has placed the drooping corsage into the mass of curls pinned perfectly still atop her head.

“Come on.” He says.

She darts away back into the dining room to place the minisphere in the large bowl where they are being collected. Some poor fool- not Yuna, she hopes distantly- has the unenviable task of collating the stills over the next few days. Gippal hovers by the gaping doorway, the pinprick smoulder of his cigarette now her guiding light. She unceremoniously downs the dregs of the glass in her hand. She walks back to him.

They wander a few hundred yards, fingers interlocked. He pulls her lazily, securely, over the natural mounds and mini dunes of the sand. She childishly pulls him down on to the sand. She insists they sit in the midnight breeze to catch the moonlight frolicking on the waves. She properly dons his jacket. She falls back, arms outstretched. Insistently, she hooks her fingers into where his shirt is rolled at his elbows. He is lying down next to her then. They both stare at endless stars.

“We used to do this at Home.” He says. There is a hoarseness to his voice. He blames it on the cigarettes.

“Yeah,” she says, “you told me all these bullshit names for the constellations when I was dating that guy who was into astronomy.”

“Sabotage.”

That startles her into silence. He continues talking after a few moments.

“I should have told you. I regret that I didn't.” he says. Rikku swallows, because normally he starts to want to talk about this after sex, and they are too naked, too close to be safe from the fallout. Or worse, when they’ve drank way too much and are arguing about something. The times when she kisses him to shut him up, or insults him so outlandishly in Al Bhed to make him chase her round the room.

“Why didn’t you?” she asks, voice small and insignificant, drowning under the cacophany of the tide.

“You know why.”

“I really _don’t,_ you know”

“Because I would have stayed,” he says simply, “You would have asked me to.”

“Don’t.” but this time it is the threat of tears, a quiver in her voice, “Don’t do that. That’s not fair.”

“And I would have-” that hoarseness returns, briefly, “stayed.”

The waves roar, swallowing his words. He knows she’s heard because he feels her shift beside him. She curls into him. Instinctively, he knows she is crying- the telltale hitch in her breathing, that perfected silent release he knows she has, because that’s the only way to cry in privacy in the cramped quarters of Home. He pulls her into his chest, as his own scant tears fall. A further ten minutes here, and sobriety is gaining on them, bringing a tropical chill with it. She stills- memories pushed back to where they belong.

He carries her back to his room, bridal. He almost swoons with relief as she giggles at the gesture. She traces the features of his face with her fingers, all the while regarding him with a tentative affection. She kisses him roughly, a tinge of an angry greed for him that both hurts and thrills him. He murmurs sorry into her lips, her neck, her ear. He hesitates when she starts to touch him, when the heat starts to build, as she starts to undress him. He is here now and that is enough for her she thinks, distantly.

The echo of their first night of passion in Luca. The slow descent of her zip, the fall of chiffon from her waist, unwrapping her like chocolate. For the last time.

Another endless night. Kissing, talking, exploring each other, committing the map of their passion to memory. Again and again.

The bittersweet dream of passion- this farewell trysts- stretches over the following two days remaining on Besaid. Tight exclusive gravity, liberal with the touches, more daring, skirting around exhibitionist, quick kisses and embraces. They let the lines between friendship and something more blur those hazy, humid, heated days. Giddy on the rush of the end of it- the thrill of this dying potential that they share.

The unwrap each other countless more times. Before it ends.

She stands on the docks and waves dutifully as the ship departs. The solemn wave he gives, slouching over the edge of the ship, cigarette in hand of course. Rikku's sunglasses on to conceal her tears, and it feels like the unsatisfying end to the epic romance she longs for. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone loves a wedding. Everyone gets laid at weddings, right?

**Author's Note:**

> Hi I've been away from fandom for a while. I like to make my own life difficult by writing in the present tense so apologies for poor grammar. FFX-2. Rikku/Gippal specifically is the ship that launched a thousand others for me. Who knew at the ripe old age of 27 they'd still inspire me to write for them.


End file.
